All Stars
by Annie Lune
Summary: A dead football player and a drug rave have a suprising connection that the team must try and solve before anyone else ends up dead. And to do this, they use an intern with connections to help...GS -Finished-
1. One

**Disclaimer**: Do you think I own them? If I did would I be writing this? NO. I would be too buys playing with all of the cool stuff in my giant house because I am making so much money off these characters. Sigh.. I can dream can't I?

**Spoilers**: Ha, I wish..

**A Note**: I write a lot better with my own characters, so I decided to create a new one. You might love it, hate it, or it might bore you to tears. And I just love getting reviews. They make me so happy...!

_Joyful Readings_

\*/*\*/

"But _I_ want a dead body." Sara Sidle clearly stated. She then folded her arms across her chest and leaned back on the couch. She was not happy with this assignment. 

Gil Grissom was not in the mood for this banter with her. It had already been a long shift, and two new cases had just come in. "Fine. You get dibs on the next body then."

"But I want _this_ one."

Grissom sighed, "Sara, I want you on this case with Nicky. It's a robbery over on East Hamos. It should be quick and easy and then you can come and help me." He was hoping that that would lighten her mood. Grissom so far had tried everything to get Sara to lighten up, but lately she had just been snappy and reserved. He wanted to accredit her mood to all of the heavy cases that had suddenly come in, but he just wasn't sure. Maybe giving her the chance to work two cases, and one with him, would get her to easy back a little. 

"Every time you say that a case is going to be easy, I end up using all of my overtime for the month." Sara stood up and waltzed out of the room without another look back. She practically grabbed Nick Stokes by the collar in the hallway and dragged him out towards where the car was parked. She was going to make this quick even if it killed her in the process.

"Oh that was smooth." Catherine Willows commented from over at the coffee pot that was acting up again. Sara and Grissom had been going on like this for a while now. Neither of them seemed to be in the best of moods, especially around each other. "I would have been happy to take that for her. I could use a quick case. You know, Lindsay isn't getting any younger."

"Well, I'm sorry then. Besides, you are good with blood and Sara is good with materials." 

"So this is a confirmed 419?"

"I'm guessing. Brass just said he would be over here in a minuet." 

Catherine took her cup and headed for the door, "Well, I'm going to go and grab my coat. I'll meet you outside in a few." She said and turned out of the room. 

Grissom left the break room himself and headed for his office. He could feel a migraine coming on and shift wasn't even half over. He sat down at his desk and opened the top drawer. The medication he had been taking needed to be refilled, but that can wait for another day he thought as he popped two pills into his mouth. 

"I've got just what will make that go away." Jim Brass called from the doorway. 

"Unless you are going to tell me that you have a roach convention in Florida with my name down on the guest list, nothing is going to help."

"I didn't think you liked Florida." Brass said with a laugh.

"I don't." Grissom replied narrowing his eyes through his glasses at Brass, "Now, can we get on with the case? I want to get this shift over with and get home." 

"Not with this case you won't; dead body over at the university. It's one of the football players. He went up for a pass and came down dead." 

Grissom groaned, "This is going to be high profile then. The crowd must have gone into a frenzy." 

"They did." 

The two men sat there for a moment staring at each other. "Well, aren't we going to go?" Grissom finally asked. "The body has probably already been moved. Let's not let anything else happen to him." 

"Grissom, I've got a proposal for you."

"A what?" He stared at the detective for a moment and removed his glasses from his face. "A proposal?" 

"There is this intern in day shift who I would love to try out in the field." Brass finally said, and seeing the confusion on Grissom's face he continued. "Don't worry, I've cleared the whole thing with the DA. He said it's okay considering the circumstances."

"What circumstances? And he's from day shift, shouldn't Eckley deal with this sort of thing?" Grissom was in no mood to have an intern tagging along with him. He could clearly remember the time Greg Sanders was out in the field, and this intern wasn't even on the payroll for CSI yet. 

"Eckley won't let _her._ I guess he holds some sort of grudge. She supposedly cracked two dead cases wide open because of evidence that Eckley overlooked. He now won't let her near anything. You know Eckley and his pride."

Gil had to laugh at this. Way to go intern. If he couldn't make Eckley look bad, someone else might as well. "But still, what other circumstances?" 

"She's at the football game now. She's the one that called it in and supposedly has tried to keep everyone away from the body. Also, she's a student at UNLV and probably has some connections. I have a feeling that this guy wasn't just struck with a hard pass." 

"_Gentlemen, it is better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football_." Grissom said, "John Heisman."

"You and your quotes. Do you ever get out of the house?" Brass asked standing up and walking towards the door. 

"I'm going to a game now, aren't I?" Grissom grabbed his coat and went to go find Catherine.


	2. Two

"I remember those college days. Partying, dirking.." Catherine stopped talking as if she were remembering times that she had forgotten. Grissom continued walking with her, letting her have the silence. He was in no mood to bring up his college days right now. 

"The thing that gets me P.O. is that I had two hundred bucks on this game." Warrick Brown said in place of the conversation. 

Grissom turned to look at him with a horrified expression on his face. He thought he had made it crystal clear to Warrick to obtain his gambling problem to a minimum. Betting on college games? That just showed that he wanted to be back in the playing field again. 

"I'm just kidding Gris. Man that look on your face, Priceless." Warrick laughed and Catherine joined in with him. And now they are teaming up on me, Grissom thought. 

The football field was in frenzy. Spectators were clustered in small groups all whispering to each other intently. There voices were all mashed together and no one could tell what anyone was saying.  Some people where crying and holding each other, obviously struck hard buy the death of one of the players. No one seemed to be on his or her way out of the game though. A lot of the bystanders were still in the bleachers also. They were obviously waiting to hear what had happened to the player rather than find out tomorrow morning over coffee. 

The ambulance had showed up, but all of the personal seemed to be standing around it looking like confused chickens with their heads cut off. They were standing around the ambulance, the stretcher out and ready to move the body, but no one was doing anything. A few of the EMT were standing in a circle shouting at each other, and two voices could be heard clearly over all of the others. 

"I am not allowing you to move the body!"

"Miss, you have to understand, it's our job. We still might be able to revive him."

"No. He is dead.. At the scene. And now it is a 'crime scene.' Anything you do could hurt the investigation!"

"Miss, I am going to need you to calm down, and I would also like to see some identification. Who gives you the right anyways to tell me that I can't move the body?" 

"You can do whatever salts your cracker mister, but you _cannot_ touch that body."

"When the family finds out what you are doing, I can bet you there will press charges for not allowing me to do my job."

"Sir, he snapped his neck when he fell. He died instantly, and I can bet that he has at least five other broken _or_ fractured bones. Did you see the way he did fall? That football was coming pretty fast and he took it right in the chest. Knocked the wind out of him. I am sorry to break this to you, but there was _nothing you could have done_." 

"And what makes you think that _you_ know so much about death and dismemberment?"

At this point Grissom pushed Catherine over to where the EMTs were bickering. He was not about to test his great social skills out on this situation. She shot him a nasty look over her shoulder, and pushed her way into the group. 

"Excuse Me, Catherine Willows, CSI 3. Want to tell me what is going on?" she flashed her ID around so everyone could see it. 

The lead EMT shot a nasty look at the girl who he had been yelling at. "This chick here thinks that she can tell me weather or not I can move the body. I am a certified emergency medical technician, and this girl just shows up and assumes that she can do whatever she pleases."

"When you assume, you make an ass out of _you_, and _me_. And where do you get off calling me some chick? Under any other circumstance I would be kicking your as.." the girl began. 

"Hold it, hold it." Catherine said holding up one of her hands. "Let's stop all of this bickering. Does someone want to tell me exactly what is going on?"

"This chick here.." the EMT said sticking his thumb in the girl's direction.

'Stop calling her 'chick' or _I_ am going to kick your ass." Catherine said glancing at him. 

"..Thinks that this is some sort of crime scene or whatever."

"Is there a dead body?" Catherine asked. "Then it is. You, go and sit back in your truck or something. I'll call you when I feel your presence is needed again." She said shooing the EMT off. "You on the other hand, come with me." Catherine looked at the girl who was standing there, looking a little dumbfounded at what had just happened. 

The two of them walked a little ways to be out of the earshot of others. The girl followed slowly behind Catherine as if she was a lost puppy fallowing a child. Finally, they stopped.

"You want to tell me what is going on?" she asked and placed her hands on her hips.

"Number 42 went up for a pass. It hit him hard in the chest and then, he fell. Everyone thought he was going to get back up again, but be didn't. I went running over and tried to push the crowd away that had gathered. I thought I could try giving him CPR or something, but he didn't have a pulse. I checked that in his neck, and I realized it was broken. That's when I called him in, and the coach called 911 thinking that this was going to turn out OK. The EMTs then showed up and tried to take him to the hospital, and I started arguing with them because I didn't think that was the best thing to do for him."

Catherine let out a long low sigh, "Well, I think you did the right thing, but no one else probably does. So far it looks likes his guy did not die playing football. We're going to have to wait for the autopsy to be sure…" she then paused and looked at the girl. "Wait, who are you?"

"Me? Oh, I'm Jenny. Jenny Duke." Catherine eyeballed the girl up and down. She was dressed casually for a football game, jeans, sweatshirt, and sneakers. Her hair was a light brown and was pulled up high on her head. She didn't have a purse or anything with her, but she was holding a cell phone. If she was wearing any makeup, Catherine couldn't tell though the dimly lit lights. She seemed normal enough. 

"Do you want to show me where the body is?" Catherine asked. 

"Yah, this way." And Jenny took off walking towards the field. 

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

"You must be Jenny." Grissom said at the girl who came walking towards him with Catherine. 

Jenny game him an odd look. "How did you know?"

"Brass told me that you were the one that called him in."

"Wait, what?" Catherine asked, obviously confused at the situation that was evolving.

"She's an intern from day shift." Grissom said looking in Catherine's direction. "Brass said that she would be here and might be able to help us out."

"What?" Jenny now said looking at Grissom. "Huh?"

"Brass said that you might be good in the field, and might be able to help us out with this investigation. I have a feeling we are going to need some inside connections."

"Well, yah, but I'm still an _intern_. I don't think I can help out in the field. I can barely help out in the lab sometimes without someone yelling at me." Jenny said and stuck her hands in her pockets. 

"That's _Eckley_ for you. And doesn't this beat Greg's music?"

Jenny laughed, "He's usually not in during the day, but when he is, I don't mind his music too much."

"At least someone is used to it." Catherine rolled her eyes. "Now come on, where is this jock?" 

Jenny took them onto the field and to where Warrick was already standing. He had tried to keep everyone off the field, but a lot of the players and fans kept on coming over and balling their eyes out. A woman was standing behind Warrick with pools of tears running down her cheeks. "He was such a young boy." She kept on saying over and over again. 

"Ma'am? I'm sorry, but you are going to have to leave the field." Grissom said to her as they neared. The woman nodded slowly, and then turned and walked away. 

"This guy was a true all star." Jenny said looking at number 42 as he lay there on the ground. "He got good grades, had lots of friends and did enough extracurricular work for three people."

"Did you know him?" Catherine asked setting her kit down on the ground and taking out her rubber gloves. 

"Nah, he's just a freshman. Sure, I've met him before, but no more than an acquaintance. His name is Josh Tucker." 

"Do you want to tell us exactly what happened?" Warrick asked, guessing that this was the intern that Grissom had mentioned to him on the ride over here.

"I was up in the bleachers, and I am farsighted and don't have my glasses so bear with me. And I also don't know much about football, I just come for the people." She said glancing around at the crowd that was still here. "The other team had just scored, and the Rebels had the ball. There were down at that end," Jenny pointed down towards the opposite end of the field, "and had just kicked off. Someone on the other team intercepted the ball, and while he threw it to one of his teammates, number 16 intercepted that. He began to run towards this end zone, but about five guys came at him. He jumped into he air and threw the ball to our guy here." she motioned down at the ground and paused for a second. "Number 16 was at the bottom of a pig pile then. Josh jumped up to get the ball, and it hit him square in the stomach. But the funny thing is that he didn't even try to catch the ball. He just jumped up and came back down. He fell flat on his back and it snapped his neck."

Catherine shook her head, "what a barbaric sport. People run around tackling each other for pleasure."

"What about the ball? Where did that go?" Grissom looked around. 

"I haven't seen it. One of the coaches probably took it or something."

"We are going to need that football." Grissom said putting on his rubber gloves. "Do you want to find that for us?" he said looking at Jenny.

"Sure, whatever I can do to help." She said and wandered off into he crowd. 

"I have a feeling that this is going to be more complicated than it looks." Warrick said pulling out the camera.

"If it was an accident, we wouldn't be here." Grissom stated and bent down to look at the body.


	3. Three

Howdy. Sorry if I have bored you to tears or something. If not, well then _good for you_! I know that last chapter was a little slow, or at least _I_ thought it was slow. But anyways, on with the story…. and have I mentioned that I just LOVE reviews? I also love Ben and Jerry's, but that's a whole different story for another rainy day….

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

"Whoa, Sara, what is wrong with you? You got us over here in five minuets_, and_ you almost hit that old lady crossing the street. Do you want to tell me something?" Nick called to her as she got her kit out of the car. He jumped out of the car himself and went to go claim his.

"No Nick, I don't want to tell you anything. And I _did not_ almost hit that lady. And if I had, it would have been her fault. You just don't go jumping out into the street like that."

"Sara, she was at a cross walk and must not have heard your burning speed engine." 

"Drop it Nick."

"Do you want me to take this case by my self? You've been pretty stressed out lately and I don't want you to push your self too far. Go home, rent some movies, eat some ice cream…."

"I'm FINE." Sara stated through clenched teeth and walked off towards the house. Nick was in no mood to pester her any more because he knew that when Sara gets mad, everyone else around her suffers.

There had been a break in at an old house in one of the residential parts of Vegas. Nick didn't come here too often, but Sara seemed to know where she was going after they were told of the address. It made him wonder exactly where did she live. He had never seen her house, but then, she had not seen his. He shrugged off a feeling that came over him that told him that he really didn't know any of his coworkers that well. They sort of kept a rule about their personal lives – don't ask, don't tell. This rule seemed to be wearing down on everyone though, and little by little things about one another were surfacing. It was only a matter of time before Nick knew all of the graveyard shift's middle names. 

There were two officers stationed at the door, and Sara flashed her badge in front of them and continued on into the house without waiting for Nick. He had a feeling that this was going to be a long night with Sara. He was actually secretly wishing that he had a case with Warrick instead, and that Grissom was here. He seemed to know how to deal with Sara when she got into one of these moods. 

"What happened here?" Nick asked one of the officers outside the door as he walked in. 

"We're not sure actually. No one called in a break in but the alarm sounded and alerted us to come here. We aren't sure if anything was stolen because we do not know whom the house belongs to. The neighbors say it has been deserted for some time now."

"Wait," Sara yelled from the middle of the room getting wind of what Nick and the officer were saying, "You're telling me that there was an active alarm in an abandoned house? That doesn't seem right." 

"Well, that's what happened. None of the neighbors saw anyone here, nor heard anything either." The office then returned to standing guard at the door leaving Sara and Nick to process the scene. 

The room was definitely trashed. Chairs were overturned, windows were broken, and shards of what looked like ceramics were all over the floor. There was a giant hole in one of the walls and none of the lights in the house were working. There was so far no visible evidence that someone had been here, well, except of course for the fact that the room _was_ trashed. But no footprints or fingerprints yet. Nick took his kit upstairs while Sara stayed downstairs. 

To Nick's amazement, the upstairs was spotless. Everything was intact, and it looked like nothing had been disturbed for some time now. But there was no dust. If something is left untouched for long enough dust starts to collect and there was no dust in any of the rooms. There were a lot of bookshelves and such, minus the books, and none of them had any trace of age on them. The bathroom was fully stocked with every medication you could imagine, and even rolls of spare toilet paper. The neighbors were obviously oblivious to the fact that someone had been here. 

Sara was in the same disbelief of the neighbors after looking around downstairs. There were obvious sings of a struggle of some sort, except that the police claimed that no one was here. Well, sure, they might not have been once the officers showed up, but sure as heck people had been here recently. Sara began snapping pictures like she was a photographer of all of the stuff she found. At one point she did find a knife, but there was no visible blood on it. After she used some luminol, still none. She had only been here for twenty minutes so far and already she was frustrated with the case. 

Sara called one of the officers in to help her push the couch that had been tipped over back to its upright position. Once she did that, she stepped back and gasped. There was a small pool of blood under the couch. This was just the clue she had been looking for to actually prove that someone had been in the house. She called Nick down and he agreed with her, something bad had gone down here. 

Nick then retreated back upstairs as Sara swabbed the blood and continued to look for more, and of course a body. Nick was now getting frustrated with the lack of evidence upstairs. Someone had been here to dust recently, but why? There were bookshelves and one desk, but nothing else minus the bathroom. Doesn't someone need a place to sleep to live in a house? The neighbors might not have noticed it, but someone was certainly going to live here. 

One of the rooms upstairs had a door that was a little ajar. All of the other doors were wide open and this looked like a red flag to Nick. He walked forward and pushed open the door. There was nothing in the room at all except a window. The walls were white and there was no other color except for the wood floor. Nick sighed realizing that nothing had happened upstairs. He turned to exit the room when he noticed something in the sidewall; two little holes.  

Nick walked closer and got inches away from the little holes there. Inside two of the little holes were two little bullets. "SARA!" He screamed to her, and moments later he heard her feet running up the stairs. 

"What?" she called as she burst into to the room, and seeing nothing but Nick at first, folded her hands across her chest. "Ok Stokes, what is _so_ important up here?" 

"You like puzzles Sara, don't you?" he asked her.

"Yes, but I am in no mood for one right now. Do you want to tell me what you found?" she rolled her eyes waiting for him to say something stupid.

"Ok, explain this to me. How could there be two bullets lodged in this wall, and the pool of blood downstairs?" 

Sara got quiet at this and Nick could tell that she was thinking. "Well, we're going to find out aren't we?" she said with a smile spreading across her face.

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

"Ok, let's look at what we have so far." Sara said as she paced back and forth across the upstairs hall. "We have an abandoned house with an alarm system in it. A bunch of neighbors with their heads up their ass. Two bullets up stairs, but no blood, and a pool of blood under the couch downstairs. There had to have been at least two people here."

"Why?" Nick asked from his spot leaning against the wall. 

"We haven't found a body yet, meaning that someone moved it. _I,_ personally, have ruled out suicide.."

"Was it ever an option?" Nick said trying to make a joke. He didn't think it came across the way he had hoped because Sara just kept on talking. 

"..Meaning that one body was shot here and was then moved. I bet there were at least two other guys here to get that mess downstairs." 

"Right." Nick replied. He was actually a bit confused with that Sara had just said, but if he told her that it would be ridicule for him. "I was thinking, if the body was shot up here, there would be at least a little trace of blood somewhere." He had already luminoled the white room, but he found nothing. 

"Someone was planning to move in here, that's what were assuming, right?" Sara asked. A thought was being drawn in her head.

"Yah, except the neighbors didn't think so."

"Let's forget about them for now, they're useless. But if someone was going to move in here, do you think they would have painted the rooms?"

"Do you think there was that plastic stuff on the floor? That would make a really easy clean up. But, it would then have to get downstairs.." at this Nick grabbed his luminol and walked over to the stairs. With a few quick sprays and then the UV light, five blood spots were now present on the stairs. 

"Ok, so as the body was carried downstairs, and few blood spots dripped out onto the stairs."

"What makes you think that the body was dead?" Nick asked. That variable had been bugging him for a while now. 

"What?" Sara asked in totally amazement. It wasn't like Nick to second-guess what she was saying.

"There is no body here. And I know the neighbors are dense, but I think they would have noticed someone carrying a corps out in a thing of plastic wrap. That to me just screams that something is not right. The bullet holes on the wall are pretty low, and I am guessing that whoever was shot was not shot in the head or upper chest, maybe the stomach. You could still make it downstairs with a bullet in your stomach." He was pretty proud of himself for thinking that up. And if he was right he could rub it all he wanted in Sara's face.

"Then explain to me how there is no blood in this hall way." Sara: one, Nicky: zip. He had luminoled the hallway with the other room and had not found any traces of blood. "If I had been shot in the stomach I would have been gushing blood all over the place. "

"Ok, ok, you're right. So now all we need to do is find out who was here, who was shot, and where are they now?"

"I'll process everything downstairs, if you go talk to the neighbors?" Sara said with a weak smile. She really did not want any more social interaction than she needed tonight. 

"You owe me breakfast or something for putting me through all of this torture so far." Nick yelled over his shoulder as he trudged downstairs. 


	4. Four

"Hello, Brass." Warrick said from his seat on the ground next to the body. 

"Warrick, Catherine." Brass said to both of them. Catherine was too busy combing the field to respond. She knew what she was doing was a long shot (looking for anything that might be somewhat related to the body) because a bunch of college boys had been running up and down here for the past hour. But she continued with her work. 

"Have you guys seen Grissom?" Brass asked getting right to the subject. "We were supposed to go talk to the coach."

"He's been gone for about fifteen minuets. He wandered off after Jenny used the loudspeaker to try and find the football." Warrick responded not looking up from what he was doing. 

"What?" was all Brass could respond with. 

"Jenny," Catherine called from a little ways away. "The intern you sent here to help us? Yah, Grissom sent he to find the football that hit him. To do this she got her self up in the broadcasting booth and got on the loudspeaker. I don't think that was the approach Grissom wanted." 

Brass just shook his head. "I should have known she would have done something like that."

"Why is she here?" Warrick asked standing up. He now had a sample of the skin from under Josh's fingernails. It was probably just someone from the other team, but you never know. 

"Greg needs someone to help him."

"So shouldn't she be in the lab with him?" Catherine questioned. 

"No, I thought I'd try her here first."

Suddenly, everything clicked with Catherine. "Jim Brass, are you trying to scare her with field work so she will want to become a labrat?"

"Don't tell her though." He pleaded with her. 

"Sure, if you tell me why she isn't with Eckley. She was on his shift, wasn't she?"

"Jenny drove Eckley insane."

"Everyone drives Eckley insane." She shot back.

"Yes, but Eckley doesn't have a sense of humor for when she goes up and asks if someone could return the football to her. He just yelled and screamed. I was surprised that she even came back day after day. He really had it out for her."

"So the truth comes out. But now tell me, is she going to drive us insane?" Catherine said motioning to her and Warrick. 

"Nah, she shouldn't. She's a real barrel of laughs if you just warm up to her. Now, I'm going to go off and talk to the coach. Send Grissom my way if he ever comes back." Brass said and wandered off.

"So she drove Eckley mad." Warrick said going over to stand next to Catherine. "I think I'm liking her already." 

"Let's hope. Now come on, we've got a dead body that needs out attention." 

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

Grissom had wandered off after Jenny's stunt with the loudspeaker, but not to look for her. She was a big girl and knew her way around so he would hopefully not have to go and drag her back to the scene. She seemed like a focused young adult. Well, he had only known her four about ten minutes but Grissom has somewhat of a sixth sense about people. Lately he had not been focusing on their words but their actions and movements. Hopefully one day he would not have to rely on just that. 

By accident Grissom had come the coach of the Rebels football team. The coach was trying to sneak away from all the commotion and make a quick get away in his car and that caught Grissom's attention. He went walking over to the man as he quickly tied to gather up all of his belongings and make a break for the fence. 

"Need any help?" Grissom asked causally surveying the scene. No one else seemed to be paying attention to the frantic coach. 

"Yah, oh, thank you. Could you hand me that over there?" the coach said pointing to a helmet lying a few feet away. Grissom trotted over and picked it up. The number 42 was painted on the back. 

"This Is Josh's helmet." Grissom said aloud. The coach stood up and walked over to Grissom to take the helmet out of his hands. "I'm sorry, but I am going to need to take this with me." Before the coach could protest Grissom whipped out his ID and flashed it for the coach. "Gil Grissom, Las Vegas Forensic. Now I am going to want to ask you a few questions…" 

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

"I'm impressed Grissom. I didn't think you had it in you to interrogate someone by yourself. Maybe your social skills _are_ getting better." Brass called to him, as he got closer.

"Mr. Davids, this is Captain Jim Brass. I probably should have waited for him, but seeing that you were trying to make a quick getaway.." 

The coach sat on the bench with his head in his hands, but at this he looked up to see whom Grissom was referring to. The last thing Coach Davids really wanted was for someone else to come and listen to what he had to say. All he really wanted to do was go home, but that probably wouldn't happen for a few hours now. Coach Davids stuck out his hand anyway and shook the captain's.  

"What have you asked him so far?" Brass questioned pulling Grissom away for a second. 

"Nothing really. He doesn't seem to be the talkative type. I was asking him about his relationship with Josh and the rest of the team. I guess they were all very close."

Brass turned back around to look at the coach who had his head in his hands again. He looked pretty distraught, but that could just be a front. "Mr. Davids, did you and Josh speak tonight?" 

"Yes." He replied in a shaky voice. "I always have the team over to my house before a home game for pizza. Josh showed up late and I pulled him aside to ask why. I make it very clear that the team is like a family and we are always expected to be there for each other." 

"Were you mad at him for showing up late?" Brass asked as he whipped out a small pad of paper and began writing furiously. 

"No, I don't show anger easily. I just asked him why he was late." 

There was a pause. "And?.." Grissom asked.

"And Josh told me that he was helping a friend move some furniture around his house. He told me that he didn't feel all that great, and that he didn't want to eat any pizza for fear that he might be sick."

"Did he look sick?" Brass asked.

"No, he looked fine and seemed to have a lot of energy. But when we got here to the field and were warming up he told me that he _was_ feeling pretty sick. Josh asked if he could sit out for a while and keep the bench warm. I was in protest of this because he is one of my star players."

"Mr. Davids, you said before that Josh was your 'secret weapon.'" Grissom asked remembering something Davids had said before Brass showed up.

"Yes, he's a freshman and most people don't expect him to play football like he does. I can always count on him for a touchdown. I figured that I would leave him out this game totally, unless we were very far behind. I have done that before and he hadn't minded." 

"But you put him in."

"He asked to go in. said he was feeling better. He even did ten jumping jacks for me, and then went running on into the field. Only moments later he fell…." at that Davids buried his head into his hands again and let out what sounded like a low wail. 

"We should get him to Doc. He could have been sick for all we know and that could have killed him." Grissom said. They excused them selves from Davids and began to walk away, when Grissom turned back. "Wait, Mr. Davids? Could you tell me who this friend is that Josh was with before hand?"

Davids didn't even look up. "I have no idea. He hangs around with everyone. You might want to ask Frank, number 16. They are best friends."

Brass and Grissom walked away and made their way back to where Josh was lying. 


	5. Five

Yah, I know. I decided to go against my plan to only do one chapter at a time and have decided to give you two. Mostly because my dad kicked my door in at seven this morning and informed me that I was going to be doing forced manual labor today, and when I threw my pillow at him, he just got mad and told me that I could do it tomorrow to. And also because I seem to be writing like crazy with all of the rain that has kept me inside. 

Well, yes, where was I? Yah, the story. Right. I'm a g/s fan too, so expect some stuff there later….hehe…. 

Oh, and lastly, reviews are always welcome…:-D

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

Grissom slowly sauntered back to where Josh was lying. He knew this was going to be a tough case considering that one: it was the death of a promising college athlete. Two: he had been in motion when it happened. And three: his migraine had kicked itself into full throttle. 

Warrick was bending down next to where Josh was laying, and Jenny was hovering above him like a dirigible. She seemed to be watching his every move intently and talking everything she saw in. one day she hoped to be a CSI, that is if she didn't change her mind again. But she liked the fact that she could help people who have been wronged, even if they are dead. Jenny was all about justice for everyone. She used to run around the house yelling at her brothers to stop doing things that they shouldn't be doing. It never worked and they usually ended up chasing her, but she still liked it. 

Someone had once told Jenny that being a CSI was somewhat depressing because they would meet these people on the worst day of their lives. She looked down at Josh and thought of just that. She had never really known him, but now she was going to because of the state he was in now; he was dead. 

Warrick didn't seem to be paying any attention to Jenny. He was concentrating more on the vast amount of evidence that he had found. A piece of plastic was stuck in his shoulder pad; some white powder was under his fingernails; a mustard stain was on his left pant leg; he was missing a tooth (which Catherine of course found a few feet away.); and there were some red fibers on his shirt; and there was a small red stain on his shirt that Warrick had tested and it was positive for blood... Somehow all of these little pieces were going to fit into the big puzzle. 

Catherine on the other hand was ready to scream. Combing the football field was like going through a junkyard of evidence. There was so much stuff there, and she had no idea what belonged to the case and what didn't. Just to be sure, she bagged everything, from a fake pink nail to a real nail. Nothing could be over looked here. She also found some bloodstains on the grass a foot away from where Josh had fallen. Catherine was trimming the blood stained grass when Grissom came over to her. 

He bent down so he could look at her face from the position she was hunched over in. Catherine expected him to say something profound about what Buddha has to say about cutting grass, but instead he just smiled and asked, "Having fun?" 

"Barrels." Catherine responded in a sarcastic tone. "Do you want to help me trim too? I bet you have a green thumb." 

"I just send the plants, not care for them." He responded with a smile. Catherine had to smile back; she knew exactly what he was talking about. "So how are things over here?" he asked getting to his feet. 

"Warrick's got the body. I think we should get him in for an autopsy as soon as possible. I, on the other hand, have come up with either someone that could break the case, or total crap." She said showing Grissom the fake nail.  

"I don't think this is Josh's color." He replied coolly, "But now, did Jenny find the football?"

Jenny, hearing her name, perked up and came running over to Grissom and Catherine. "Sorry Mr. Grissom…."

"Please, just Grissom." He said cutting her off.

"…. Grissom. You must have heard me…"

"Oh yes we did." Catherine said jumping in. 

"….but no one brought me anything." She said finally finishing her sentence. "I have a feeling that someone ran off with it, probably one of the players or a devoted fan. It will more than likely turn up around the school at some point. Every football they use for a home game is numbered and painted with a different Rebel sign. If I find it I will know."

"Are you a senior?" Catherine asked. The question had been bugging her for a while now. Was this intern really qualified to be working with them in the field?

"Yup." She replied, sticking her hands in her pockets. Grissom realized that this was a reflex of hers that she did whenever she got uncomfortable. She had already done it a couple of times he noticed. "I've actually finished all of the classes I need for credits. I actually finished last year, but decided to stay and continue taking classes. I get my diploma in May." She said and smiled, taking her hands out of her pockets. Catherine sighed with relief. At least she was qualified, but had she been to the academy?

Jenny could sense that they still wanted to know more about her, so she went on, "I've taken about two thirds of the classes I need at the Academy. Don't fret." She said. Catherine still wore a apprehensive look. "Eckley doesn't like me?" She finally said. Maybe that would get this shift to like her.  

Catherine laughed, and smiled. "It's not that we don't like you, or think that you aren't qualified Jenny. It's just that we don't have the best reputation with rookies." 

"Oh." Jenny said, her face drooping a little bit as she realized that she _was_ a rookie, and would be one for some time. She could only imagine what they had done to the other ones.

"Enough with this for now. Have you talked to any of the bystanders yet Grissom?" Catherine asked turning to him.

He shook his head no. "Why don't you and Jenny go and do that, you probably know a lot of people here." she said looking straight at her, and Jenny seemed to perk up again. "And go find number sixteen."

"I know him." Jenny said reassuringly.

"Good. Now go." He said and shooed the two women off. 

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

"That's Frankie Despo, Josh's best friend." Jenny said pointing to one of the guys in a crowd of about ten people. "If I go in there they are going to think I want to go get drunk with them or something. You better go." 

Catherine, without even thinking about what she was doing, walked straight on into the middle of the crowd and the conversation they were having stopped. The guy that Jenny had pointed out as Frankie took one look at Catherine and whistled. "Whoa, what have we here?"

"I could be your mother." Catherine shot at him. "But, I'm not, thank god." She replied after that, shutting Frankie up. She could tell he was one of these slime-ball guys who she did not really want to have to deal with. It reminded her too much of Eddie. "I'm guessing your Frankie Despo."

"The one and only." He said stepping out of the circle he was in and walking over to Catherine. 

"Good. We've got some questions for you." She said and beckoned him to follow her back to where Jenny was standing. The three of them walked a little ways away to be out of the earshot of others, and they told Frankie to sit down on a bench that had come across.

"Hey Jenny girl, I haven't seen you for a while." He said cooing at Jenny.

"Not now, and not never." She replied sharply. Catherine had a feeling that the two of them knew each other better than they were both willing to admit to. 

"Ok Mr. Despo. I hear that you are best friends with the deceased." Catharine was not going to wait around so she got right to the punch.

"Deceased?" Frankie asked. Jenny turned to Catherine and made a hand motion showing that he had taken one too many footballs to the head. "Oh, Josh? You mean Josh right? Yah, we were best friends. Fraternity brothers, homeboys for life. It didn't matter to me that he was just a freshman and I am a junior." 

"So the fact that you didn't have any classes together didn't make any difference?"

"Classes? I'm here for the parties. And we sure got to know each other during practices. We are all like brothers."

"But you two were the closest?"

"Yah, we could relate real well to each other. Dated the same girls, hung around with the same people, did the same stupid stuff…."

"Stupid stuff?"

"Do I need to explain everything to you?"

"No, I think Jenny will be able to fill me in on that." Catherine said glancing at her. She seemed taken aback at the comment, and hoped that Catherine realized that she would never do any of the 'stupid stuff' that Frankie was referring to.

"Were you two together before the game?" Jenny asked this time trying to now prove her worth to Catherine.

Frankie froze for a moment, and then replied in the same manner. "We were all at coach's house." 

"Before that."

"Uh, no. I was with my girlfriend."

"You don't _have_ a girlfriend." Jenny shot back. 

"How do you know that I don't?"

"I know this stuff Frankie. And I can bet that you two were together before the game."

"Prove it." he said crossing his hands across his chest. 

"Oh, You _never_ tell a CSI to prove anything, because we will, and then we will kick your ass in so many other ways. Go back to your demeaning ways of behaving yourself as one of the countries future leaders. Or gas station attendants. Which ever you think suits you the best." Catherine turned and walked away from him, and Jenny turned to catch up to her. 

"Can you really prove that they were together?" she asked excitedly.

"It's my duty to rub the evidence in guys faces who act like that. How well do you know him anyways?"

"What do you want to know?"

"Oh Jenny, I see the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Catherine told her as she threw her arm around her shoulder. "I can tell he's a real jerk. Let's get him for everything he's ever done."

"He won't see daylight again. The list is kind of long." 


	6. Six

Ok, you caught me. I am the _WORST_ speller in the world. My world history teacher this year actually told me that I had the spelling mentality of a third grader. It's not my fault that I kept on spelling _those_ as _thoes_. Right, but that's why I have spell check. 

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/****

"Mr….Whittermeither?"

"Mr. Whitmhiter."

"Oh, sorry." Nick replied now a little embarrassed that he couldn't pronounce the neighbor's last name. "Mr. Whitta…"

"Please, call me John."

"Ok, sounds good to me. John, did you have good relationships with your neighbors?" Nick asked as he pulled out a pad of paper to record everything that the neighbor said. 

"Good fences make great neighbors." John said motioning to the fence between his house and another. 

"But there isn't a fence between your house and the one in question right now."

"Right, I didn't feel the need to put one up. The last people who lived there were rather old and didn't leave the house much. I knew that I would put up a fence one day." John paused, "Was the house was broken into?"

"Well, we aren't really sure what happened yet. We have someone working on it." as Nick said this he hoped that Sara really _was_ processing the scene and not slacking off, like what he would have been doing. Wait, this is Sara he was referring to. She would probably be processing the doghouse if there was one on the property. "But John, did you know these neighbors in #76?" Nick asked using the house number.

"No one was living there. It has been deserted for about a year now. No one seems to want to buy it. There was a 'For Sale' sign up or a while, but then someone took it down."

"Yes, the sign was taken down because someone had bought the house, about five months ago as far as the records say. Sir, we have some evidence that suggests that someone was going to be moving into the house, if they weren't already living there. Do you work during the day?"

"Yes."

"Have you seen anything suspicious while you have been home? Like someone carrying out a giant thing of plastic wrap?" Nick couldn't believe that those words had just escaped his mouth.  

John looked confused at this question. "Sorry, haven't seen anything like that. And I don't think anyone has been in that house for a while. I would have heard them."

Nick looked over at #76, and then at John's house. They were really close together and Nick certainly would have heard if someone was trashing the place inside. "What time do you work?"

"From four to ten everyday."

Nick sighed. The neighbor hadn't been home when the house was being ransacked, and in other words, would be useless in this investigation. "Thank you for you time. If we have any more question I'll contact you." Nick then turned and walked towards the house. The two officers were still stationed there and they were talking their head off. They didn't seem to notice that Nick had even walked by them. That was the one thing Nick hated, inattentive officers at a scene. There have been too many situations that have ended badly with preoccupied officers. 

Nick entered the house and spotted Sara over by the hole in the wall. She seemed to be absorbed in the hole, and didn't hear Nick until he was right behind her. "Sara?" he whispered so he wouldn't startle her, but it didn't work. She jumped about three feet in the air and turned around and smacked Nick in the arm. "Don't you do that!" she screamed at him. All he could do was laugh. 

Sara shrugged of his childish behavior and went back to looking in the hole. "What do you make of this?" she asked him after he had stopped giggling.  

Nick leaned forward and looked in with her. The hole was huge first of all, and quite deep. Inside of the hole were three shelves showing that someone was planning on storing things in there. On the first shelf was a Ziploc bag with some white power in it. "I'll bet you anything this is a drug." Sara commented and then bagged the bag. On the second shelf was a hundred dollar bill and on the third shelf was a beer bottle. "I got one smudged print off that bottle. I'm going to see what Jackie can do with it back at the lab. I don't know about the bill though. It's wet."

Nick looked around for some tweezers and found them in Sara's kit. He took them out and then picked up the bill. It sure was wet and smelled funny. "Do you recognize that?" he asked Sara. She shook her head no. "Ok, can I expand on our theory?" 

"Sure. Knock yourself out." she said shrugging.

"Ok, We have an abandoned house with an alarm system in it. Two bullets up stairs, but no blood, and a pool of blood under the couch downstairs. Oblivious neighbors, and a trashed downstairs and a spick and span upstairs. Now, I think we have some drug dealing going on." Nick held the bill up to his eye level and examined it. "Something tells me that there were more plastic bags and money too. What the hell happened here?" Nick wondered aloud. 

"Oh, you think you've seen everything?" Sara said giving him a look, "Come see this." After he bagged the bill, she led him towards the back of the house to a door. Sara pushed it open to reveal a staircase leading down to what Nick guessed was the basement. "You ready?" she asked. Nick had no idea what she was going to show him.

Sara started down the flight of stairs and when she got to the bottom she turned around and looked back up at Nick who hadn't budged. "Oh, you want to me turn on the lights? Ok…." Sara turned to the side and flipped three switches. With the first switch, strobe lights turned on and began to illuminate the room in quick pulses of light. With the second switch, a disco ball in the middle of the basement light up. Sara smiled as she flipped the third switch, this one was he favorite. Flipping the third switch, the floor of the basement began to glitter as Christmas lights under a sheet of thick glass twinkled on and off. 

Nick came downstairs with a wide-open mouth. "Clean second floor, trashed first floor, and a disco in the basement." Sara said proudly. 

"I'm confused." Nick finally said.

"Join the club."

"What this club? I think I'll stick to those foam parties."

"And now _I'm_ expanding our theory. An abandoned house with an alarm system in it. Two bullets up stairs, but no blood, and a pool of blood under the couch downstairs. Oblivious neighbors. A trashed downstairs and a spick and span upstairs, and a disco club in the basement. Drug dealings, booze and money. Am I missing anything?"

"Not yet."

"Right. Now all we have to do is figure out how this fits together."

"My favorite part." Nick said with a smile. 

"I thought that was being back at the lab with Greg discussing the latest episode of _Trading Spaces_?" 

"Not funny Sidle."

"Oh, I thought it was when I walked in on that conversation. I'll never forget your mortified look when you both realized that I was standing in the door way." 

"Ok, can we just call a truce now? Can we get back to the _crime_? Did you lift any fingerprints off anything else upstairs?"

"Way to change the subject Nicky-boy. And yes, for your information, I did."

"I'm driving." Nick said forcefully as he turned and began to walk back up the stairs. Sara flipped the switch for the lights. 

"I know your deep dark secrets Nick.  You are watching TLC not for the shows on _birds_, but for the shows on _designing_. I think the least you owe me to shut me up is to let my drive."

"Like this isn't blackmail…" Nick said as he and Sara gathered up their kits and left the scene. 


	7. Seven

Don't fret, don't fret….G/S stuff is coming….

And I would _love_ some more reviews. I want to make sure that I am really writing this right. Please criticize all you want, positive, negative and also those in between. :-)

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

Warrick didn't mind a quiet lab especially after the night he had just had. He had been one of those "all stars" in college and it made him realize how quickly life is yanked away from all of us. He sat on the couch in the break room with his eyes closed trying to act invisible. He knew any second someone would come barging in complaining and going on about how long the night had already been and about how there were still a few hours left in shift. Warrick had a feeling he would be using some of his overtime tonight. 

He could feel the sleep that he had neglected recently creeping up over him. He so badly wanted just fifteen minuets, but the last thing he wanted was for Grissom to walk in and see him snoring like a baby. Warrick knew that he was not going to get any sleep tonight, and decided that coffee was the best substitute for that. He opened his eyes and noticed that there was someone else in the break room that he didn't at first recognize. He squinted for a moment as he vision cleared and he remembered that Jenny the-inter-Brass-was-trying-to-scare was still with them. As if she knew that Warrick was looking at her, she turned. 

"Pleasant dreams?" she asked.

"No." he responded dryly. 

"Erm, I just have a question," Jenny didn't wait to see if Warrick was going to allow her to ask the question or not. She just kept on talking. "Do you stay up _all_ night, _every_ night? I know this is the graveyard shift, so…. does that mean you all catch your Z's during the day?"

Warrick was feeling a little bid groggy from standing up so quick, and mumbled something to Jenny that even he didn't understand.  She nodded like she understood and went back to looking at her magazine at the table. 

After Warrick had regained most of his conscious with the coffee, he went and sat down next to Jenny at the table. "I don't think I answered your question." He said feeling a little sheepishly that he had just kind of brushed her off. 

"Oh, no harm done. Just always smile and nod like you know what's going on."  She said not even looking up from what she was reading. Warrick tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. Instead he sat there sipping his coffee as Jenny continued to read. He was surprised that _she_ didn't seem tired. 

About ten minutes passed and then Catherine came strolling in to the room and grabbed herself a cup of coffee. "Autopsy at twelve thirty." She said to Warrick and went and sat down on the couch. "And I dropped the evidence off with Greg. He should be paging you soon." She took a sip of her coffee.

"Autopsy?" Jenny said glancing up from her magazine. "Can I come?"

Catherine nearly spit her coffee out all over herself. "You want to come?"

"Can I?" she asked like an excited kid. "I've always wanted to go. Dissecting a cat in anatomy is just not the same."

"Sure…." Catherine said with a worried voice. "I think I could get you in there if you really want." She could only pray that Jenny changed her mind before hand. Catherine could remember her first autopsy and she nearly fainted. 

Jenny smiled at her, and then dug her nose back into what she was reading. 

Moments later, Catherine's buzzer went off and she looked down at it. "Warrick, it's Greg. Do you want to go for me? And if you see Grissom tell him I want to talk to him." 

Warrick stood up from the table and Jenny looked up at him. "Can I come for that too?"

Catherine was amazed at the young intern's eagerness to throw her self into the job. "It looks like we've got another Sara on our hands." She said to Warrick as he and Jenny left the room for Greg's lab. 

Warrick and Jenny walked in silence down to where Greg was stationed. You could hear his loud rock music before you actually saw him rocking to it. Warrick slowly meandered down, while Jenny kind of bounced behind him. She was going to be great on the graveyard shift if she always showed this much energy. 

With pushing open the door to Greg's lab, his loud music escaped into the hall, and immediately Warrick made a move for the boom box. Greg hadn't even noticed they had come in, but her certainly did when his music stopped blaring. 

"Hey!" he called and spun around in his chair. He looked first at Warrick, and then at Jenny standing next to him. "Sparkie? Is it really you?" he asked glancing at her. 

"Hi Greg." Jenny mumbled back and stuck her hands in her pockets. 

"Are you giving every one pet names now Greg?" Warrick asked rolling his eyes and walking over to where Greg was seated. Jenny stayed right where she was.

"No, she _earned_ the name Sparkie. Didn't she tell you what she tried to do in here?" Greg asked as he began to shuffle through all of the papers he had on his desk looking for the ones Warrick wanted. 

"What did you try to do?" Warrick called over his shoulder to Jenny who had still not budged.

"It was an accident." She mumbled.

"She tried to burn my lab down." Greg said in a perky voice.

"It was an _accident_."  Jenny called again. 

"Eckley didn't see it as one when he came running in here, fire extinguishers drawn." Greg laughed at the memory of him doing that. 

"What did you do exactly?" Warrick asked, now needing to know how this went down. 

"I tripped _OK_?" Jenny said sternly now walking over to where the two guys were laughing their heads off. "But it's your fault that the spark protector was lying in the middle of the floor." she said pointing a finger at Greg who was still laughing. "I wouldn't have tripped and spilled that strange fluid…. and then hit the hot plate….if you had just been more careful!" 

"It's ok kid," Warrick said putting his arm around Jenny's shoulder. "Catherine blew up the lab once if it makes you feel any better." 

"She did?" Jenny asked noticing that Greg had suddenly gotten very quiet and went back to shifting through papers. 

"Yah, but I wouldn't bring it up out of the blue. She gets kind of touchy on that subject…. But Greg, do you have our results?" 

"Of course! A labrat never sleeps." He said seeming to brighten right up at the change of the subject. "What do you want first? Evidence number one…" Greg said motioning to a microscope, "Or evidence number two?"

Warrick made his way over to the microscope and peered in. there was about five red fibers in there that had come from Josh's shirt. "Gotta love some of these car companies." Greg was saying to Jenny. "They think that by getting rare fibers for their seat covers will make the car a whole lot more special. Well to me, it just pinpoints the car a whole lot quicker. They come from a Mustang, I can't figure out the year though."

"I know someone who own a Mustang." Jenny said as if she was thinking to herself. 

"Well, go get 'em Sparkie!" Greg said pretending to throw something for her to retrieve. 

"What's the other stuff you have for us?" Warrick asked coming back to where the two of them were standing. 

"Well the stuff from under his fingernails? I ran it though DNA and it came back negative."

"It's not human then?"

"Nope. Sorry."

"So what is it then?"

"I don't know, if you'd get out of my lab and stop pestering me maybe I could find out." Greg said turning back to his work. "You can stay if _you_ want Sparkie." He flashed her one of his big smiles.

Jenny threw him a nasty look and left the lab with Warrick.


	8. Eight

Haha…. yah, I also have a tendency to look over stupid mistakes when I do a proof read. Whoops…. [You're my lifesaver Blaze…:-)]

This is kinda short, but I'm just getting warmed up….

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

Grissom stood outside the autopsy room waiting for Doc to be ready. His migraine had finally gone away, but he knew as soon as Sara came bursting into the lab it would be back. She had that strange effect on him for some reason. Sara could calm him down and then instantly fire him up once again. 

Doc Robbins opened the door to summon Grissom in, and Catherine came bounding down the hall. 

"What?" Grissom asked knowing that she wanted something.

Catherine hesitated for a moment, "Jenny wants to watch the autopsy. I know, I know, I tried to talk her out of it, but she insists that she can handle it."

Grissom was a little taken aback at this comment. An incident was clear in his mind of someone else and their first autopsy. He shuddered at the though of Holly's experience, and then of course because of the memory of her. "I don't think this is a good idea." He said clearly to Catherine. 

"I can take it." Jenny called from behind the corner of the hallway. She stuck her head out and smiled. "Trust me, I think I've seen worse."

Grissom just shrugged his shoulders, and Jenny took this as a "yes" and came bounding down the hallway. 

Josh was already lying on the table and Grissom was looking at him when she opened the door and tiptoed in. the only thing the two men in there could do was hope that this didn't affect her emotionally because she had known him. And also of course because this _was_ her first autopsy. 

"This guy was certainly an interesting fellow." Doc said to Grissom. "Very fit, and not just because of the endorsements in his system."

"He was on drugs?" Grissom questioned. " I thought that was illegal for athletes to use." 

"It is. Don't you remember all the to do stuff about that at the Olympics? I ran him through tox and it came back positive."

Grissom looked at Jenny who was standing there next to him talking everything in. "Oh, if someone knew he was on drugs he would be kicked off the team so quick his head would spin. Sure, people use it all the time though. There was a whole thing about the swim team and using 'boosters' a while back. They were all suspended." 

"So, if he was on drugs, maybe the rest of the team was on them also. Do you think Mr. Davids knows about this?" Grissom asked

"I wouldn't be surprised if Davids wasn't the one getting them for his team." Jenny said dryly. "All college sports seem to be corrupted nowadays."

"We're going to need to talk to the coach again."

"Don't worry, I can get you in." Jenny said reassuringly. 

"Wait Grissom, I'm not done." Doc said looking at Grissom who seemed to be about ready to head back out to the lab. "That wasn't the worst part about this guy. I sent some more of that white power stuff off to Greg for analysis. There were a few hairs stuck in his uniform that I sent off too…."

"Wait, Doc, what killed him?" Grissom suddenly asked. 

"Loss of blood." Doc replied with a heavy sigh. 

"Loss of blood?" Grissom replied. "How could he have lost any blood? What, was that football spiked or something?" he then added in a sarcastic tone. 

Doc leaned forward and pulled the cloth over the bottom part of the body off. Grissom looked down. "He was shot in the stomach?" he said in shock. "That doesn't make any sense! How could this guy have played football with a bullet in his stomach?"

Doc turned and grabbed some cloth bandages out of a bowl to the side of him. "Who ever bandaged him did a good job and kept him alive that much longer. And those drugs in his system probably helped." Grissom took the bandages into his hands and began to look at them. "Yes, I think there are some epithelials, if that's what your thinking, Grissom." 

"Jenny, run this down to Greg and see if he can get this to me as quickly as he can." Grissom said handing the bowl of blood soaked bandages to Jenny. She took them with a disgusted look on her face, but then that cleared and she then turned and walked out of the room. "Anything else?" Grissom then asked.

The Doc shook his head. "I'll get that bullet over to Bobby as soon as I get it out."

"I'll be waiting for the report." Grissom said and he then walked out of the room. This case seemed to be getting odder and odder. How on earth did Josh get a bullet in his stomach, and then why did he go and play football?? Right now, none of this made any sense to Grissom. He didn't think Sara was in the lab yet, but he could already feel that pesky migraine again. Maybe if he _did_ see Sara, the pain from his head would counteract with the pain (or grief, or sarcasm, or determination, or even just her presence….) that she would give _him_ and he would feel better. He was already feeling better with the thought of Sara….

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

Catherine stood in the lab with Greg and Jenny, waiting impatiently for Greg to run the epithelials thought DNA.

"So, what I am doing now determines the outcome of the case?" he asked excitedly 

"Not exactly." Catherine replied.

"How about a little bit? Will this determine if someone killed someone else??"

"No." Catherine replied sternly. She really wished Greg would stop fooling around so much and just give her the results.

"How about figuring out who shot JR?" 

"GREG!"

"Geese, you need to get out of the lab more often Catherine." Greg turned back to the machine he was working on. "I now don't want to give you the results. So I'll give them to _Sparkie_." Greg wheeled around in his chair and handed them to Jenny who was leaning up against the wall. Catherine game the two of them a puzzled look. "She tried to burn down my Lab." Greg said whispering to Catherine.

"Would you stop saying that?" Jenny roared. "Seriously Greg, an _accident_…" Jenny trailed off as she looked down at the paper.  "I think we can add something else to Frankie Despo's list." 

A grin spread across Catherine's face.


	9. Nine

Sara sighed; it was always good coming back to the lab after a crime scene. She walked into the building like she owned the place and made her way down towards the break room. She had sent Nick off to Jackie with the fingerprints, and then she had ordered him to go to Greg with the money and the drugs. Sara on the other hand was looking forward to a good fifteen minutes of down time. 

She made her way down the hall when she passed by Grissom's office. He was sitting inside behind his desk talking to someone standing in front of him. Sara didn't recognize the girl who stood there. Grissom was now smiling, and then reached over and picked up the phone. Grissom barely ever smiles. 

The girl came out of his office and was coming right by Sara. "Who are you?" Sara blurted out. She had to know whom this girl was that could make Grissom smile. 

The girl stopped in her tracks with a puzzled expression. She looked at Sara for a moment, and then walked right up to her and grabbed her hand. "I'm Jenny. Jenny Duke." She said, still shaking Sara's hand. At lest she did have a firm handshake. 

"What are you doing here?" Sara now asked releasing her grip from Jenny's.

"I'm working with Grissom." She said as if she had been doing it for some time now. "But I've got to go find Catherine now. It was nice to meet you!" Jenny yelled as she turned away from Sara who stood there with a puzzled look on her face. She hadn't introduced her self to Jenny. 

Grissom hung up the phone and looked up to see Sara standing there looking confused. "Is something wrong?" he called to her.

"Who was that?" Sara asked coming over to stand in his door way. 

"Oh, you mean Jenny right? Brass got us an intern." Grissom said shifting through some papers on his desk. "Don't worry, she's got nothing on you." He said looking up and smiling at Sara. Ok, maybe _she_ could make him smile. 

Sara nodded her had seeing that Grissom was wrapped up in something, and began to turn away. 

"Sara?" 

Sara turned back and looked at him. 

"Is something wrong?" he asked putting his papers down. 

"Oh, no, I was just confused to who the girl was…."

"No, not like that Sara." Grissom hesitated for a moment, "Are you okay?" 

Sara stood dumbfounded in the doorway. "I'm fine." She finally spat out in reply to his question. 

"We've been over this before. I can always tell when you aren't acting like yourself."

"And since when do you know how I act?" she shot back at him. And he didn't know. She was one person at work, the got-to-get-everything-done, neglecting herself, over working person here. But at home, well, she really didn't know because she never through about that. Sara really never was at home.  Her life _was_ her work. 

"I spend just about every day with you. You have certain behavioral patterns."

"Way to bring me down to the level of animals, Grissom." Sara replied sarcastically. She shifted weight on her feet as if she was getting ready to move. 

"Sara? Please, tell me what's wrong."

"Sine when have you been so concerned about me?" 

"I always have been." He replied talking off his glasses and leaning back in his chair. 

"Why do you think that something is always wrong?" Sara asked talking a step into his bug-infested office. 

"Because usually something is." 

Sara took a few more steps in, and pulled back one of the chairs that was in front of his desk. She usually never came in here to make conversation with Grissom. It was always her rushing back and forth from one spot in the lab to another. Sara had forgotten just how eerier his office was with all the bugs. 

"Did you ever find that something?" Grissom asked brining Sara out of her daze. 

"Hmm?" Sara asked focusing her attention back on Grissom. He was staring straight at her, but his eyes seemed to pierce right through her. "Find what?"

"What do you do when you go home?" 

"I sleep, and I eat, and I read…."

"Everyone does that Sara. Don't you have something you like to do outside of this lab?"

"I think we've had this conversation before." Sara answered with a little laugh. 

"We have, and I'm still worried about you. That little stunt you pulled earlier made me realize that maybe everything isn't okay. Sara, you've got to separate yourself from work."

"That's the problem Grissom, I feel that I _am_ work. When I go home I think that I could be doing more back here at the lab. I don't like to put something down in the middle, and I always feel that I could have done more. That's why I'm always here. I've always been this way."

"You need some sort of outlet Sara. I don't want to see anything happen to you because you are so wrapped up with the stuff here." Sara took in his words and nodded. Grissom sighed, "I know you still aren't going to do anything." 

She sighed, "What am I supposed to do, Grissom? Start taking yoga classes? Go see Celine Dion over at Caesars? Fly to Disney land?" 

"I just want you to separate work and play. I care about you Sara." 

The words struck Sara hard and she stared at him for a moment lost for words. "I don't play." She finally answered, "That's the problem. I can't separate the two if there isn't one."

"Sara, you throw yourself onto cases and then become emotionally attached. That's not healthy. You push yourself way too far, and then come down on yourself hard when you mess up. A person can't live like that. I think it has been getting worse and worse with every case that comes up."

Sara just sat there staring at him. He really did seem worried, but did he_ really_ care about her? Grissom went on, "what would you be doing if you weren't a CSI?"

"I don't know." Sara stated and looked down at the ground. "I don't like to think about that. I chose to do this because…"

"Because you felt you could hide in the job?" Grissom answered for her. Sara sat there in silence. "You should have to hide. No one would know how wonderful you are then." Grissom continued to stare at her with a worried look. He really did care about this girl. "Sara Sidle, I am giving you three days paid vacation. In that time you are to find something that you really love to do, outside of this building. You are to then come back here and tell me, and we are going to compare."

"What did you just say Grissom?"

"You are going to come back here and we are going to go out compare the things we love."

Sara stared at him with a blank expression and narrowed her eyes at him. 

"We both have next Friday off. I already checked."

"Are we going _out_?" Sara asked.

"You can call it that. Now I want you to finished this case and go home. I don't expect to see you back here until Thursday." Grissom slipped his glasses back on and began to shift though the papers again. Sara took this as her cue to leave and stood up, still a little bit confused about what Grissom had just told her. "Oh, and another thing," Grissom added as she stood once again in the doorway. "Stop giving poor Nicky a hard time. You two are a bad as kids sometimes." Sara looked back at him wondering when he had become as powerful as God, and how he knew all of this stuff. How exactly did he know that Sara had been taking her anger out on Nick? She shrugged it off and headed towards the break room.

She stopped dead in the hall way then as she remembered that Grissom had just set them up to go out.


	10. Ten

"So we meet again Mr. Despo." Catherine said talking a seat at the table in the interrogation room. Frankie sat on the other side with his feet up on the table. In one sweeping motion, Catherine pushed them off and Frankie lost his balance. He fell with a thud on the floor. Catherine could swear she heard Jenny's laughter from the next room where she was located behind the glass. 

"I could report you!" Frankie said straightening himself up and sitting back in the chair.

"Does it look like I _really_ care?" Catherine said opening the folder one of the guards had handed her. In it contained some police files, and then some of Jenny's scribbles. Catherine looked over them and began to read them aloud, "Drug Charges, sexual assault, restraining orders, harassment, drag racing, another assault, larceny, vandalism…Well aren't you just the all American guy?" Catherine said putting down the folder.   

"You can't prove most of those. That's her talking!" Frankie said abruptly standing up and pointing a finger at the glass were Jenny was located. Warrick stood next to her and when Frankie did this, she shifted back right into him. 

"_Right_. Well, she claims to have substantial evidence that could convict you. And to think, those weren't even the reasons you were brought in here." Catherine looked straight at Frankie, who seemed quite nervous now compared to his cocky self that she had just seen. "Let's get straight to the point. I can prove that Josh was in your car this afternoon." Catherine pulled some papers out of the folder and threw them across the table to Frankie. "The fibers on Josh's uniform match those from your Mustang. Now, I have another sheet here that gives DNA results from the bandage that was recovered off Josh. I haven't even looked at it. Why don't you tell me what it is going to say?"

Frankie bit his lip and narrowed his eyes. "Fine…. Fine, I'll talk. Ok, I was at coaches when I got this frantic phone call from Josh. He said he had been hurt and that I should go grab some gaze from the first aid kit and come and pick him up."

"Where did you pick him up?" 

"Um, I don't know. It was getting dark and Josh was just telling me to take rights and lefts. Look, I can't remember, OK? I got there and he was bleeding pretty badly. I jumped out of the car and bandaged him up. He was trying to stop the bleeding with a towel or something. He was doing a pretty good job because there wasn't too much blood on him or around where he was standing." 

"Do you know why he was bleeding?"

"No, He wouldn't tell me. He just told me to drive back to coach's. I gave him some Tylenol and he said he was feeling better. I told him not to play in the game, and he said he was going to at least try to get in."

"And that was it, you just let some kid with a bullet in his stomach go wandering around and then go play in a football game?" 

Frankie looked up with fear in his face. "Josh had been shot?" he asked, his voice shaking.

"Yes." Catherine replied softly. 

"Oh my god." Frankie said and looked down at the floor. After a moment he recollected himself and looked back up. "Look, I didn't know. If I knew he had been shot I would have taken him to the hospital or something. I would have definitely told coach." 

Catherine sighed, knowing that Frankie knew nothing about why Josh was shot. "Ok, can you tell me this, was Josh talking drugs?" 

Frankie seemed to gain some of his cockiness back, "Can I say no comment?" 

"You can say whatever you want." Catherine replied standing up and collecting the papers from the table. "And Frankie?" she said as she got to the doorway and turned around "Next time you do something stupid, I can bet that you will be back in here talking to me. Just remember that next time you think about drag racing kid."

"He was pretty shaken up about finding out that Josh had been shot." Jenny said as she came out of the next room. Frankie emerged moments later and gave Jenny a stern warning look. She backed away as if he was going to come at her, but instead he took off down the hallway without looking back. 

"He didn't know anything." Catherine said looking at the concern on Jenny's face now. "We need someone else with information. I suggest that you and Warrick head down to the school and go talk to the coach. We need to find out where he was getting these drugs."

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/****

Across the lab, Nick was just as fed up with the information he had. "Greg, can't you just tell me what was on the bill?"

"No man, I got to hear about this place. Disco balls? That's stellar."

"_Stellar_?"

"What, didn't they use that term back when people thought disco was cool?"

"Greg, _can I have the results_?" 

"Do you think Sara likes discos? Or maybe Jenny? Yah, She seems like that kind of person…"

"GREG!"

"Geese, all of you people are so snappy tonight. What, did someone spike the coffee pot?" Greg said handing Nick the sheet of the readout.  

"Oil?" Nick questioned looking at the sheet. "That doesn't make any sense. It didn't smell like oil." 

"Well what do you want me to do? I just give you the results. Speaking of results, did you happen to catch the score for the football game?"

"I did." Grissom said entering the lab and at that Greg shut up. "And I would love to tell you if you tell me what kind of drug that was under the star player's fingernails."

Greg sheepishly handed Grissom the sheet. "Ecstasy? That's a club drug." 

"Well, maybe your guy was at Nick's little disco. He found ecstasy there." Greg mumbled. 

"Maybe next time." Grissom said and left the lab.

"I am never going to figure out that man." Greg said swiveling around in his chair. "Jackie left those for you." Greg pointed as he spun at a fingerprint on top of a stack of piles. 

Nick walked over and picked it up. "Thanks man." He said and left the lab himself. He made his way towards the break room where everyone seemed to have conjugated. Sara was sitting on the couch talking with Catherine, Warrick was watching the news and some young girl was sitting at the table writing something up. 

"Get our info?" Sara asked breaking away from her conversation. 

"The substance on the bill was oil and the fingerprint on the bottle matches that of Hennery O'Malley. He's a student at UVLA, and can you guess what his major is?" Nick said looking over the sheet. 

"Electrician?" Sara asked

"Bingo. Let's go pay him a visit." 

"I know him." The girl at the table called pushing her writings away. Nick gave her a puzzled look. "I'm a student there."

"Nick, that's Jenny. She's an intern and has been working the case with Warrick and I." Catherine informed Nick and Jenny gave him a pleasant smile. 

"Right, well, Sara, do you want to head over and find O'Malley now?"

"I've got to head over to the school too. How about you and I go?" Warrick said clicking the television off and motioning to Nick.  

"If you two go you'll never come back." Sara said standing up. "I'll go with you Warrick, just as long as I drive."

"Hey, I want to drive." Warrick said in protest.

"I'll drive." Jenny chimed in from the table. All of the CSI turned to look at her. She was buys writing again and didn't look up. 

"You can drive, Sara." Warrick said grabbing his coat and heading out the door. Jenny stood up and followed after him. 

"Intern huh?" Nick asked. 

Catherine stood up and went over to the coffee pot. "She drove Eckley insane and now Brass has thrown her on us."

"It looks like the next few days are going to be quite interesting then." 

"You'll have to tell me all about it. I'm taking some days off. Grissom wants me to find a hobby and then we are going to go out to compare." Sara said as if she wasn't giving it a second thought.  

Nick and Catherine stared at each other, trying to comprehend what Sara had just said.


	11. Eleven

[Laughing hysterically] uh, no, I don't have a degree in forensics. Heck, I barely have my learners permit. But a degree might be nice. Except that I am _just _a few years away from going to get one. And I don't think I want one in forensics. Sure, it would be cool and all, but I think I would pass out cold at the sight of a decaying carcass. I do know a CSI though, and she tried to sneak me into the lab one day, but let's just say that what happened next was not pretty [laughs again].

Right, the story…. thanks for all the great reviews; I have been writing like mad to finish this story. I hope you like the rest of it. And you know, I'm thinking that _every_ story needs a sequel….tell me what you think…8-) {man, it's great to have an excuse to say in on these hot summer days….}

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\***/**

It had been while since Sara had been in a college dormitory. Her house had been a lot cleaner though, she remembered as she stepped over dirty clothes lining the hallway. A bunch of girls came running out of one of the rooms dressed just in towels and soaking wet. From the door they had emerged someone was yelling at them to come back. Two other students were making out in a doorway and someone else was sprawled out on the floor, obviously stoned. Ah yes, college days. 

Sara walked up to Hennery's room and rapped on the door. At first there was no answer, so she knocked again and heard loud voices from inside the room. Moments later the door was thrown open and a hefty looking guy stood in the doorway. "Whatta you want?" he asked.

"Sara Sidle, Las Vegas Forensics, is Hennery O'Malley here?" the guy who had answered the door looked over his shoulder and scanned the room, and then shrugged. "So, he's not here?" Sara asked.

"Doesn't look it." the guy replied. Great, this guy doesn't even know if Hennery is in the room or not, Sara thought.

"Well, I need to ask him a few questions. Do you know where I could find him?"

"No idea."

"Right. When was he here last?"

"Uh, yesterday."

"When yesterday?" Sara asked through clenched teeth. This tête-à-tête was starting to get her frustrated.  

"Uh, maybe lunch time? He was muttering something about going to get paid…. or was it laid? I can't remember."  

"Ok, uh, thanks…. I guess." The guy shut the door in Sara's face. She turned away irritated at the stupidity of some of this generation. Can't they keep their roommate on tabs or something? This was idiotic; she should be able to get a hold of Hennery. Sara was debating yelling "Hennery!" out at the top of her lungs in the hall just to see if anyone would respond, but she decided against it and headed back to find Warrick. 

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

"I have this strange feeling we aren't going to find him here." Jenny said peering through the glass on Coach Davids door. "It doesn't look like anyone has been here for a while now, and this coach never goes to his house unless the team is with him. He lives out of this office."

"Do you think you could find someone to get us in here?" Warrick questioned moving up next to Jenny and peering into the room himself. 

"He's the only one with the keys. Your best bet it to kick down the door." She said in a bubbly voice that made Warrick think that she was serious. "Or you could always try a credit card or something."

Warrick made Jenny stand as a look out while he 'broke into' the office, but he wasn't really considering it breaking into. No one was there, and if someone had been there they certainly would have let him in. Warrick considered the situation one where he was just taking matters into his own hands. 

The door to the office slowly opened and Warrick stepped inside. The first thing he noticed was that there were two desks in there, signifying that this office was shared with someone else. There were some plaques on the walls and framed pictures and of course some sports balls with signatures on them. 

"That one." Jenny said sticking her head in the doorway and Warrick jumped. "Erm, sorry. But the one to the right of the far desk, that was the football used in the game. It has the date on it." sure enough there was a deflated football leaning up against the wall and Warrick walked over and picked it up. He knew that he didn't have a warrant, so he didn't want to take the ball with him. It was just a standard football, nothing out of the ordinary about it. The only thing was that there was a good-sized slit in the bottom of it where it looked like something had been stored. Warrick searched it over for anything else that didn't look right on it, but then placed it back down when he realized there was nothing special. 

Instead of heading back out, Warrick took a closer look at the room. There was one picture that caught his eye. It was up in a gold frame on the wall to the right of the door. There were three people in the picture, and one of them happened to be whom he recognized as Josh. He was holding a football and flashing a smile. Two other boys in the picture were holding a basketball and a baseball. There wasn't a description of who the people in the picture were, but Warrick could guess that they were all star players. 

He searched the room a little more, opening up some drawers and looking for any signs of drugs and such. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in this room, and it looked like no one had been here for a while now. 

He found Jenny in the hallway talking to someone who looked about her age. When Warrick came out the other girl glanced at him and smiled. "Oh give it up Tina." Jenny said disgusted and turned away from her. Tina stomped off in the other direction. "Tina says that she saw coach come by here last night at about eleven, but he didn't go into this office. He just looked inside and then hurried off. She said that he was carrying a large duffel bag. I don't think we are going to find him now." she said depressed. 

From where Tina was stopping off too, Sara emerged looking pretty aggravated. "I can't believe this! I have asked just about everyone on campus about this Hennery guy and no one has seen him! Someone must know where he is! This is ridiculous! Please tell me that you are having more luck."

"The coach seems to have left." Warrick said sighing, "Jenny, do you know where he lives? We should probably check there.…" A rowdy boy and girl came bounding over towards them then cut off Warrick. 

"Jen! Look, spread the news. Because of Josh's…. _death_…. it's off tonight." The girl said shoving a flyer into Jenny's hands. "This will tell you everything about when the next one is going to happen. You're friend can come too." The girl said smiling at Warrick and shoving a flyer into his hands. The girl then went running off down the hall to catch up to the boy who was throwing flyers at everyone in the hall. 

"What makes you think that I was actually going to go??" Jenny yelled down the hall to the girl who wasn't even paying attention. "Disgusting." Jenny said throwing the flyer into the trash. 

"Hey, I didn't get one." Sara said feeling hurt that she had not been invited to this party. 

"Here, you can have mine." Warrick said handing her the flyer after he had looked at it. It was for some sort of rave he noticed. "Why is this postponed because of Josh's death?" he asked Jenny as they walked down the hall and back towards where they had parked the car. 

"Wait…." Sara said stopping in her tracks. She had noticed the address on the flyer and was not scanning the rest of the sheet. "Did you say this was for a rave and being postponed because Josh is dead?" she asked looking up from the paper. "Josh was shot, right?"

"Yah." Warrick replied remembering what Grissom had told him. 

"And you found ecstasy on him, right?" Sara seemed to be drawing conclusions in her head.

"Yah…Sara, what are you getting at?"

Sara looked at him and smiled, "I think we're working the same case."


	12. Twelve

"Don't you love it when this happens?" Nick said brightly as he settled down into one of the chairs in the layout room. "I mean, two totally different cases, with only the loosest ties, and some how the turn out to be one in the same!"

"I think you all owe me credit for cracking this case." Greg said as he walked in the room. "I was the one that though maybe Josh had been at Nicky's little club…." Greg seemed pretty proud with himself for thinking this up, and he took a chair next to Nick. Grissom didn't seem to mind that Greg had wandered in here to listen to what they all had to say. He had been doing this recently, and he _was_ part of this strange CSI family. 

Grissom smiled at the lab tech and then turned his attention to Sara who stood next to him with all of the information from her case. "Ok, let's look at what we have." He said as  Sara grabbed a folder off the table and began pulling pages out of it.

"First of all, let's give these guys credit to think up something like this. A rave in a residential part of town? That's either ingenious or brainless thinking on their part. But that also explains why it looked like someone was going to move into the house. They had to have some essential amenities for their 'customers.'  

" But, Ok, let's start with the house. The alarm system works so that people can move freely in the house with out tripping the alarm. Once a door or window is opened while the alarm is active, it goes off. This would be perfect for something like a rave. It would keep the customers in, strangers out, and everyone else away when they weren't there." Sara looked around the room to make sure that everyone understood what she had said. Grissom smiled at her and she smiled back hoping that no one else had noticed. 

"No one was at the scene when we arrived." Nick said leaning forward in his chair and ruining the moment for Sara. "I think they got into the house and set the alarm. They did their business in there and in the process, Josh was shot. Josh had to have time to get out of the house, so I don't think the others set the alarm off when they left. I think the other people in the house _reset_ the alarm when they left, leaving Josh inside. All he had to do was open a door to get out, and the alarm goes off." 

Grissom nodded his head in agreement, and Catherine joined in on the debate. "Once outside the house, Josh called Frankie who came and picked him up. Frankie also bandaged him up not knowing what had happened inside. The two of them when to Mr. Davids house, and then off to the football game. Josh sat on the bench for most of the game, but once he went in, it was all down hill from there. I think that when he went up to get a pass, his wound opened more and then a combination of the bullet, the drugs, and the fact that he had lost an extensive amount of blood kicked in. I found some blood on the grass near where he fell, showing that he was still bleeding pretty badly. When he fell, he broke his neck, but he was already dead."

"I found a piece of plastic on his pads, and Nick thinks that there was that plastic lining at the house, which is why there is a lack of blood all over the place there." Warrick commented "Also, the ecstasy I found under his fingernails…."

"Is an identical match to those found at the house. Along with the pool of blood that Sara found there. All signs point to Josh." Greg piped in sounding proud that he had done that part of the investigation. 

"The bullets recovered from the house, also match the one taken from Josh. All of this places him at the scene." Grissom finished.

The team sat in there, looking proud with them selves for figuring this entire thing out. 

"Um, yah, but who shot him?" Jenny asked from the far reaches of the room. Everyone had forgotten that she was in there. "What happened to O'Malley? Where is the gun?"

Silence swept over the room, as all of the CSI remembered those crucial facts.

"Do you want to hear what I think?" Jenny said, continuing on, "Well, of course you all do. I think these guys were there," she said waving the flyer for the rave around. "And they all got into a fight. This is how I think it went down. They were getting ready for the rave, when they get into a fight upstairs. O'Malley comes in to try and keep the peace, when he is shot which signifies why he is MIA. Josh flips out at this, and tried to wrap him in the plastic wrap on the floor. While doing this, one of the other guys shoots him – by accident? I don't know. But they then get downstairs, where Josh collapses on the floor oozing blood. The other two guys get into a bigger fight realizing that they just shot two people. I think they were then trying to cover the whole thing up by trashing the downstairs and then leaving Josh there to bleed to death. I bet that if you run those finger prints though AFIS and then the bullet though it's own system, you'll come up with these two guys." She said smacking the paper with her hand.

The entire graveyard shift team started at her with open mouths and blank expressions. For all they knew she could have just cracked the case for them. They sat there for a moment, before they all started talking at once, yelling to others what they were going to do.

"I'll go find Bobby."

"Does anyone know where Jackie is?"

"I'll go call Brass and see if he can find these two guys…."

"Way to go Sparkie!" 

"How much are you willing to bet on that?"

Jenny stood there watching the CSI frantically leave the lab and head out to go solve the case.


	13. Thirteen

Hello all you happy people out there in FF.com land. The reason for my speedy posts is that I am being forced to go on a family vacation for the 4th, and I want to get this finished before I go. It's like when you have taped an episode of CSI because of the vast amount of homework you have received, and go to watch it the next day, only to find out that your father turned off the VCR ten minutes before the episode ended and you are stuck trying to figure out who killed who for the next month before it goes into repeats. Yah, I don't practically like that, so I don't want any one else to suffer my same fate. 

Oh, and another thing, if anyone finds any loose threads in this story, please tell me. I have read it over a couple of times through to make sure I have covered everything, but that is sometimes hard to do. I know in my head what is supposed to happen, and sometimes I look over what I should have written. :-)

Right, read on….

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

"Mr. Signh?" Grissom asked through the halfway cracked door. "Las Vegas Crime Lab, I'd like to ask you a few questions." Luke Signh opened the door a little bit more so Grissom could get a full look at him. He was big, very big. Grissom ducked into his doom room.

"What do you want?" Luke snapped. 

"I'd like to ask you about your friend Josh Tucker."

"He's dead." Luke replied forcefully.

"And that's why I want to ask you a few questions."

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

Nick knocked on the door three times before someone finally answered. "I don't think you are Erik Kurt." He replied looking at the tall blonde who was standing in the doorway with half of her clothes on. The blonde ducked away back into the room, and Erik came out. "Mr. Kurt? I have a warrant for your gun." Nick stated walking into the doom room. 

"I don't have a gun." Erik replied coolly.

"Oh, that's right, you don't, but your _dad_ does. And he says it has been missing from its case for quite some time now…." 

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

"Neither one of them is talking." Catherine said to Grissom as she walked out of interrogation room number one. "They haven't asked for lawyers yet, so I guess that's good." 

"Have you tried blinding them with the evidence?" Grissom asked taking a sip of his cold coffee. He had been waiting for Catherine to talk to both of the guys for about an hour now. She seemed to be taking her time interrogating them, except that now she was telling him that they weren't talking. 

"You were always better at that than I was." She said and walked down the hall towards the break room. Grissom now had no choice to go and question the two suspects.  

Grissom chose to go and talk to Luke Signh first. Three fingerprints of his had been found in the house, and he was listed on the rave sheet as the "all star baseball player." Grissom pushed open the door to reveal a sullen looking Luke. 

"Do you want to tell me why I'm here?" Luke demanded slamming his fist on the table. 

"I can see you've got a temper there Mr. Signh. Tell me, do you get violent when you are angry?" Grissom asked. If this could go the way he was hoping it would, he might not have to use any evidence to blind at all. 

"It depends who I'm dealing with." Luke replied. Ok, so Grissom was going to have to use some evidence.

"You a good baseball player?" Grissom inquired. 

"I wouldn't be on the varsity team if I wasn't."

"Right, so, Josh must have been a good football player to be on that team then too. But you know, sometimes the performance of an athlete is slowed when they are on drugs. Or even when they have a bullet in their stomach."

Luke stared right at Grissom not blinking. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I have evidence that says that you were at 76 East Hamos recently. I also have evidence that supports that Josh was there too, and that things got ugly. Now, it would be a lot easier on all of us if you told me what happened." 

Luke continued to look straight at Grissom. "Ok, if you want to play it like that. Drugs were found at the house and on Josh. Do you want to tell me what that is about?" Grissom had a feeling that he was going to get nothing off of Luke, because he just started straight ahead. Now Grissom was frustrated with this and stood up, "You know Mr. Signh, if things go my way tonight, you could be facing a lot of jail time."

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

"Need some help?" Brass asked as Grissom walked into the break room. He headed straight for the coffee pot and poured him self a big cup. 

"Like you have no idea." Grissom replied chugging the coffee. Sara walked into the room at that moment, and Grissom looked over at her. She seemed to be happier now, her steps were lighter and she hadn't tired to bite off Nick's head in a while. Sara smiled at him, and then got some coffee for herself. She had been smiling a lot recently. Hopefully this meant that her mood was improving. 

"Having pleasant conversations with the boys?" she asked taking a sip. 

"They aren't talking." Brass said, "You never found this O'Malley did you?"

Sara shook her head, "it makes me think that there is another matching bullet somewhere else."

The three of them walked down to interrogation room number two, where Erik Kurt was enjoying himself. He was wandering around the room and looking at the one-way glass. "Any one in there?" he called tapping on it. 

"Oh, this guy looks fun." Sara stated before heading into the room on the other side of the glass. Brass and Grissom walked into the interrogation room. 

"Mr. Kurt, please take a seat." Grissom asked taking one himself. Brass walked over and stood in his usual corner to observe everything. "Now, Mr. Kurt, you own a gun?"

"Um," Erik bit his lip. "It's my dad's. He gave it to me when I came here."

"That's not the story he is telling." Brass called from across the room. "He didn't know where it had gone to, until I told him that its bullets had started showing up in Vegas." 

Erik fell quiet for a moment. "Ok, ok, I took his gun. But it was just for protection!" he yelled. 

"Have you ever used it for something when you weren't in danger?" Grissom asked.

"No." he replied sternly. "But other people have."

This caught Grissom's attention. "Who are these _other_ people?"

Erik looked nervous now. He squirmed in his seat as if he had not meant to say what he had just said. "No one, no one has used my gun other than me."

"So have you used the gun recently?"

"No." he replied firmly  

"Erik, I can match the bullets to the gun, we have record of them. We know the bullet that shot Josh came from your father's gun."

Erik made a revolted look, "Yah, but you're never going to find it." he said half mockingly. 

"Erik, we need the gun." Grissom replied getting frustrated with this banter. "How about you tell me if you know where Hennery O'Malley is?" he tired. 

"'Malley? He's with the gun…. uh…. no…. no…. sorry…. he's at home. Yah, I saw him yesterday there."

"_Erik_, We need to know what you know. Where is Hennery O'Malley?"

"Luke knows, he hid him."

At this Brass left the room abruptly and ran into Luke's room. 

"Where is Hennery O'Malley?" Brass shouted at him. 

Luke stared straight at him, not blinking.


	14. Fourteen

"Jenny!" Nick called running down the hall way and into the break room. Jenny was sitting on the couch with a book this time happily reading away. "Jenny," he panted out of breath. He had seen Brass yelling at the guy in the interrogation room and walked over to see if he needed any help. Brass instructed him to come running down here to find Jenny. "I need to know where a baseball player would hide something." 

"Huh?" she said looking up from her book and placing a bookmark in it. 

"Erik says that Luke hid O'Malley and the gun, but Luke won't talk." Nick said sitting himself down on the couch. 

Jenny thought for a moment. "Didn't you say that you found a bill drenched in oil at the house?" 

"Yah, why?"

"I think I know where Hennery, the gun, the drugs, _and_ all of his money are hidden then." 

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

"What is this place?" Nick asked as Jenny opened a big wooden door.

"It's the old equipment room. Only the team captains are allowed in here, or well, they were supposed to be the only ones. There is another room across campus nearer to the field. This one is now used for, um, _pleasure._" Jenny said blushing a little bit. Nick got what she meant and walked into the room with here. 

It was quite spacious for an equipment room. There were some shelves and spare mats and of course numerous amounts of all playing balls.

"The golf carts are stored in here." Jenny said walking a little ways back. "Golf carts use _oil_." She said looking around the carts now. "Luke is the captain of the baseball team so he could come and go from here as he pleases and no one would give a hoot."

Nick walked over to one of the carts and bent down. One of them was leaking a fair amount of oil. He examined the cart, and then looked over the other two next to it. This one seemed to have a small crack in the front of the hood. Nick leaned forward and tried to pick up the hood. It opened. He had never been much of a grease monkey, but he sure did know that something was wrong with this engine. Everything was covered in dirty oil, making it look like it had been changed recently. He slipped on his rubber gloves and began to fiddle with the compartment for the oil. 

Jenny wandered around the other side of the room looking for places to conceal a dead body. She had a nagging feeling that Hennery O'Malley was in here; she just needed to find out where. She could see Nick over by the golf carts, where she was guessing the cash was stashed. Jenny decided he had that situation under control and continued searching for the other missing pieces of this puzzle. 

Nick had gotten the valve for the oil off with some difficulty, but he couldn't see if anything was buried down inside of there because it was too dark in this room. He was in no mood to just stick his hand right in there and fish around for the money, but it looked like the only way he was going to find anything in there.  Rolling up his sleeve he shook his head and plunged his hand down in the oil tank. It only took him a second before he found what he was looking for. 

"Jenny!" he called. She was over opening up some storage crates and came trotting over. "Take this." He said pulling his hand out of the tank and handed her a plastic bag. She took it into her hands and thanked god that she was wearing gloves. It was disgusting.  "Not a bad place to hid the cash."

"No one would have ever though to have looked here, especially for this." Jenny said as Nick handed her another bag. If she could judge the amount correctly, it looked like there was at least a thousand dollars in each bag, and Nick was still pulling out more. 

After Nick had cleared the tank of all of the bags (seven total) he removed his gloves feeling pretty proud with himself. "Ok, we have the cash that they were getting for the drugs, and what they used to probably pay for that house."

"But where are the drugs? Knowing this guy, he probably hid everything in here." Jenny said searching the room for some sort of clue as to where the drugs were hidden. She looked over everything, but her eyes came to rest on a crate of deflated balls. Jenny could remember that Warrick had found the ball from the football game and that had been deflated. "I think they were hiding them in these." 

Jenny walked over to the crate. She picked up one of the balls and stuck her hand inside of it.  She pulled out an empty plastic bag. In the bag were a few traces of white powder, and one small pill. "That's why someone ran off with the ball after the game, and Warrick then found it in the coach's office. I bet you anything that he was getting them for his team." Jenny threw the ball back into the crate. 

Nick dumped the crate over onto the floor and the two of them began to search through every single ball. Every one had a small slit in the bottom where it had been deflated and then sewn back up. In some of the balls they found empty plastic bags, in some of them nothing, and two bags full of drugs. 

"The coach left town, didn't he?" Nick asked after every ball had been searched. He was in the process of putting them all in evidence bags now. 

"Yah, he wasn't at his office, and I think Catherine tried his house. Nothing." She said hopelessly and sat down on another crate. 

"There are drugs still floating around then. Someone must know where they are."

"Yah, and there is a dead body too!" Jenny said sarcastically. 

At that the door to the room opened and in walked a very angry looking woman coach. "What are you doing in here?" she spat at them after surveying the scene and seeing not only a thing of balls tipped over and then some of them bagged, but golf cart oil all over the place. 

Nick searched his pockets frantically looking for the warrant that Brass had given him just in case. He took it out and showed it to the coach who threw him a dirty look. "Yah, you can be in there then, but I suggest you get out. This isn't some place to hang out you know." She said shooting a look at Jenny who smiled sheepishly. "But since you are here, maybe you could tell me if you have seen any bats? They aren't in the other storage room, and since it looks like you have searched _all_ though here…." 

Nick shook his head, "Sorry Ma'am. Haven't seen any in here."

"Things are always disappearing around here," she muttered to herself as she left the two of them alone in the room again. 

"I don't think we are going to find O'Malley in here." Nick said to Jenny as he grabbed the evidence bags and took them in his hands. She wasn't listening to him though. 

"He plays baseball….she's missing bats…." Jenny said not paying attention to Nick. "…. That makes sense if he did that….yah…." Jenny stood up. "I think I know where O'Malley is. He's not here."

"Where is he then?" Nick asked putting the bags down.

"There is no place big enough to hide a body in here, _but_, the case where the keep the baseball equipment on the field is. I bet that Luke hid O'Malley there and then hid the bats with him. Why? Because sooner or later someone would be looking for the bats and they would check in here. Not finding them in here they would check the case on the field. Looking there would mean that they have found Hennery, and well, that body is now off his hands. It's an easy cover-up and he probably though that no one would be able to trace it back to him."

"What are we waiting for then?" Nick said grabbing the evidence bags and leaving the storage room with Jenny. All he could do was hope that they would find Hennery O'Malley.


	15. Fifteen

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

The explanation about the oblivious neighbors was towards the beginning. The neighbors never noticed anything, mostly because the guy right next-door worked during the afternoon when the boys would visit, and in addition, could have cared less about what was going on there. Also, The rave hadn't "opened" yet, so only a few people were coming and going. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. Whoops…. 

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

The equipment case lay at the other side of the baseball field. Nick and Jenny hurried over to it as quickly as they could get over there. There weren't any bugs around it yet, so they could only assume that if Hennery was in there he hadn't been in there long. "Are you ready?" Nick asked Jenny pulling yet another pair of rubber gloves on. She nodded her head in agreement.    

Nick threw the case open to reveal the missing bats that the other coach had been looking for. He tossed them onto the ground. There was plastic wrap underneath the bats. Nick looked over at Jenny to make sure that she was still Ok, and then he pulled back the plastic wrap to revel a head. Jenny peered into the case, "It's Hennery O'Malley." She said and then turned away. 

"Call Brass for me, will ya?" Nick told her as he pushed more of the plastic wrap back. Then suddenly, Hennery's eyes fluttered open and he gave a loud moan. Nick jumped back. "He's alive!" Nick screamed at Jenny who stood a few feet away on her cell phone. At this she looked up in confusing, and then yelled the same thing into the phone.  

At this Nick frantically began pulling the plastic wrap back to try and get Hennery's body out of there. Hennery shifted a little and closed his eyes again. Nick checked for a pulse on his neck, and found one, which made him work even faster. He tried to do it in a way to preserve whatever evidence might be in there, but then he deserted that whole procedure and began ripping the paper back. Jenny came over and hoisted herself up onto the side of the case to help him. 

"Hennery?" Jenny yelled, "Hennery?? Can you hear me?" she was pulling the plastic back even quicker than Nick in an obvious attempt to try and save one of her peer's lives.  She had made her way down to his legs and pulled some plastic off and threw it on the ground. She wasn't concerned about the evidence as mush as she was concerned about Hennery's life. 

Once enough of the plastic had been removed from Hennery's body, Nick himself jumped into the case to life Hennery up to get him out of there. He did so carefully enough to try and not hurt him anymore than he already had. He could see a clear bullet hole in the kid's stomach, and it looked like he had been punched in the face a couple of times. Jenny stepped back giving Nick some space to then jump out of the case, and he did so with as much care as he could. 

Nick placed Hennery on a grassy spot a little ways away, "Hennery?" He called, "Hennery, everything is going to be okay. Just hang on!" There was nothing else Nick could do now but wait for Brass and the ambulance to show up.

Jenny on the other hand walked back to the case and picked the gun in there up. 

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

"I don't know if he is going to make it." The EMT told Jenny. It just happened to be the same EMT who she had argued with the night before, but now he was treating her with respect. "He's lost a lot of blood and seems to have fractured a few bones. Do you know how long he was in that case?"

"If he lives I'll ask him." Jenny said calmly. "Get him to the hospital, ok?" she said as she watched the EMT get into the ambulance and drive away with the sirens going. All she could do now was pray that he would be fine.

She stuck her hands into her pockets and wandered across the field to where Nick was processing the case. "I got a bunch of fingerprints off of the case." He said jumping out of it and taking off his gloves. "The gun has some prints too, and there are some footprints leading away from this also."

"Don't we already know who did it?" she questioned as she smiled weakly.

  "Only the more evidence to convict him with." Nick replied flashing one of his smiles for her. He lingered for a moment, and the spoke, "You'd make a great CSI."

"You think?" Jenny asked. "Now I'm not sure though, I might want to be a vet."

"A vet?"

"What's wrong with that?" Jenny narrowed her eyes.

 "Nothing at all, but we'll change your mind before hand, trust me." Nick said gathering up his kit. "Come on, let's go talk to these suspects again." 

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

Catherine sat across the table having a stare down with Luke. He hadn't said a word for nearly an hour now, and neither had she. What he had said beforehand was that he was threatening to call a lawyer and then walk out on them, so Catherine took the job of babysitting him. Her attention turned though, when she heard a commotion in the hallway, and Jenny came and rapped on the door. Luke looked up at this startled, "What is she doing here?" he asked. 

"Busting you." Catherine replied with a smile and walked over to greet Jenny who was standing there with Nick. 

"We found the money, some drugs, the gun and Hennery." Nick told her. 

Catherine sighed relieved. "That's great." She said giving the two of them a big smile. 

"But that's not the best part." Nick went on, "Hennery was alive."

"Alive?" Catherine stammered. She turned around and looked through the glass on the door at Luke who sat there staring at them. "He probably won't be too happy about that though." 


	16. Sixteen

"Ready for the case to get even weirder?" Greg asked in anticipation as all of the graveyard shift gathered around the table in the layout room. Greg looked around at all of their faces hoping for feedback, but he got none. He shrugged his shoulders and went on. "The bullets from Josh and the house both match the gun recovered from the equipment case. The fingerprints on the equipment case match those of our friend Luke and so do one of the sets of fingerprints on the gun…."

"Wait, _one of the sets_?" Grissom asked 

"Yes, there were two sets of fingerprints on the gun. Any takers on who the other might be?" Everyone looked around dumbfounded. They hadn't expected two sets of fingerprints. Greg sighed. They were all really worn out with this case. "The second set of prints belonged to none other than Mr. All Star."

"Josh?" Warrick asked. Greg shook his head.

"Ok, this changes everything." Sara commented and sat down in one of the chairs. 

"We're going to need to talk to Hennery." Nick said crossing his arms. "Maybe he can tell us what happened." 

"I don't think that is going to be possible." Brass called into he room. Seven sets of eyes turned and looked in his direction. "Hennery O'Malley died on the operating table." 

Jenny said down in the chair nearest here and placed her head in her hands. She was obviously taking this hardest because she had known Hennery. They had taken some of the same classes together in their junior year. He was scheduled to graduate with her in May.

"I'm sorry." Brass said and came over to join the others in the room. 

"Well, I guess we're going to have to follow the evidence then, aren't we?" Grissom said as if he was happy to be doing this. 

 \*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

Hennery now lay on the table in the coroner's room, as Doc Robbins and Grissom looked him over. Jenny could not bring herself to come into this autopsy, and had instead gone off with Sara to get fresh coffee for everyone. Catherine was still babysitting the boys in the interrogation rooms, and only god knows where Nick and Warrick had run off. 

"He was shot in the back and it looks like a close range shot, probably within five feet." Doc said to Grissom. "I already sent the bullet down to Bobby. He should be brining you the results soon, but even I know that it came from that gun."

"What is this bruising on his face? It looks like it was made with a blunt object or something. And are those defensive wounds on his hands?" Grissom asked motioning to Hennery's face and then his hands. 

"I found a piece of porcelain in there. Someone probably threw a vase at him." Doc said placing a hand on Hennery's head to show Grissom what he meant. "You can see that he has the beginning of a black eye too. And yes, those are defensive wounds on his hands, his left one especially. And, there is some ecstasy in there." 

"In his blood?"

"No, in his wound. It is an obvious transfer from his attacker."

"Thanks Doc." Grissom said as he hurried out of the room and down to where Catherine was. She had finally left the room and was standing in the hallway, as if waiting for Grissom to come to her. "We need to see their hands, check for Ecstasy." He said and hurried off in the opposite direction.

Catherine turned and walked back into he interrogation room. "Hands please" she said to one and then left that room and did the same to the other. She brought what she had collected from their hands and from under their fingernails out to Grissom who had come back and was now waiting for her. Catherine handed the samples to him and he hurried off down to Greg's. 

Sara was standing outside of Greg's looking in. She saw Grissom coming down the hall and turned towards him. "She's a little shook up." Sara stated motioning to Jenny who was sitting in the lab with Greg. "I guess she knew him pretty well. She was actually quite shocked that he would get himself wound up in something like a rave, but I guess he was good with wires. Jenny figured that Josh and all were probably paying good money to have him make the disco in the basement. When I talked to his roommate, he told me that he thought Hennery was going to get paid…. or laid. He couldn't remember." 

Grissom laughed, "That sounds like college. And how are you doing?" He then asked her turning his attention away from Jenny and Greg in the lab.

"This isn't a abuse case, Grissom. I'm fine." She said sarcastically.  

"That's not what I'm referring too." 

"I'm fine, really. Jenny and I went to a Starbucks, bough ourselves some six buck frappichino, and now we are back here. She wanted to go and talk to Greg for some reason, and I am in no mood in intervene in their conversation." Sara shrugged her shoulders, "If you want me, I'll be in the break room." She said turning and walking down the hallway. 

When Grissom turned his attention back to Jenny and Greg in the lab, he couldn't help noticing that they were both laughing hysterically and looking straight at him. "What is wrong with you two?" he asked sticking his head in the lab but them two of them just continued to laugh harder. He shook his head at the two of them, gave Greg the evidence to be analyzed and then left the room. 

Jenny said her goodbye to Greg, and ran out into the hall after Grissom, "Was it bad?" she asked obviously referring to Hennery. 

"He was shot in the back at a close range. We're going to need to go talk to Luke and Erik again." Jenny shook her head understanding what that meant. "So what were you two laughing at anyways?" Grissom asked.

A smile spread across Jenny's face, "You wouldn't understand." She answered. Grissom gave her a warning look, "Ok, Greg and I made a bet and under no circumstance does it concern you. Now where is Catherine?" she asked and walked away from him. 

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

Everyone had gathered in the layout room again. Luke was still not talking and Erik was just dazed and confused. They had the money, Hennery and some of the drugs, but they all knew that there was more floating around out there. Now all they needed to do was figure out who had killed who and why.

"Well, you said Hennery had defensive marks on his wrists." Catherine said pacing back and forth across the room, "And a burse on his face. It sounds like he got into a fight with someone and then they shot him in the back. I don't know if that is more or less painful than stabbing though…. God…. some of these cases just make me realize what kind of world we live in." 

"I know Cath, but we have to move on from that. We have to figure out who shot this kid, and then of course why he was dumped in the case."

"Well, The fingerprints on the case belong to Luke. It was then confirmed that one set of prints on the gun belongs to Luke, and the other to Josh." Nick said folding his hands across his chest. 

"Well, obviously Josh didn't shoot himself. Luke must have shot him, meaning that Josh shot Hennery." Warrick said jumping into the conversation.

"But why would he shoot Hennery? Let's say they got into a fight, why?" Nick retorted

"Hennery was going to get paid." Sara stated. "We found one bill there. Hennery and Josh probably got into a fight about how much he was going to get."

"Doc found a shard of porcelain in his wound."

"I found a broken porcelain vase at the house." Sara commented, "Let's say that Josh threw the vase at Hennery. Now, if that happened to me, I would take all of my stuff and left."

"Maybe that is what he was going to do. The room where we found the two bullets was totally empty. Perhaps he was going to hook up some more lights in there, but why two bullets in the wall?"  

"Warning shots?" Catherine suggested, "And you said defensive wounds? Maybe then Hennery attacked Josh. That's like a mouse against an elephant, or a geek against a jock."

"Hey!" Greg shouted from the doorway where he stood listening to everything that they were saying.

"We're all geeks here Greg." Catherine said rolling her eyes. 

"Then, to get Hennery off him, Josh take a shot. He was shot in the back, meaning that he had defeated Hennery and he was now on the ground." Sara rejoined the discussion. 

"Right, at the third shot, I would have done something, so that is when Luke comes up stairs and sees Hennery on the ground and Josh standing over him…."

"You guys are overlooking something." Jenny stated. "The gun you have, who's gun is it?" 

"Erik's." Grissom confirmed.

"Right, how did _Josh_ get _Erik's_ gun?" 

The room became quiet. Jenny seemed to have a knack for halting all discussion with overlooked variables. 

"I think we should go ask him." Grissom said and turned and walked out of the room. 


	17. Seventeen

"We are sorry to detain you here for so long Mr. Kurt." Grissom said sitting down at the table across from Erik. 

"You guys need some decorations in here or something. A painting, some potted plants…." Erik said looking around the bland room. 

"I'll be sure to tell the sheriff about that." Grissom said not amused at all. Brass snickered. 

"Mr. Kurt, we want to ask you about your firearm." Brass said stepping into the middle of the room and leaning on the table.

"But it's not mine." He stated sternly.

"Oh, right. Mr. Kurt, we want to ask you some questions about your _dad's_ firearm."

"What about it?" Erik asked shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

"How about, why did you have it at 76 East Hamos? Could we start there? We both already know why you were at the house anyway." Brass said with a smirk. "We're you all going to have a party?"

"It's called a 'rave' sir." Erik corrected him. Brass and Grissom exchanged looks. 

"Right, so Mr. Kurt, why did you bring your dad's firearm to the rave?"

"I didn't" Erik said, and Brass was just about to start jumping up and down screaming at the kid for trying to ask so naive, when he went on, "Josh brought it." 

"Josh brought it?" Grissom asked leaning over to get a better look at Erik in the dimly lit room. 

"Yup. Called me up about two days ago, told me to meet him at the house, and to bring my gun. I said sure. He showed up at my house yesterday morning, and asked to take the gun himself. I didn't object."

"This could be a pre-meditated murder." Brass whispered to Grissom. 

Grissom turned back to Erik, "So, You and Josh…." 

"Don't forget Luke!" Erik exclaimed.

"So you, Josh and Erik all go to the house. Right? What happens there? Did a fight break out?"

"Yup."

"Yup? Do you want to get a _little_ more specific?" Brass asked, tension mounting on his voice. 

"I don't know, I was downstairs. I head something break, and then some more stuff break, and then footsteps going upstairs. A few minutes later, a loud bang, and then Luke went to go see what was happening." 

'The whole time you were in the basement?" 

"Yup." Erik replied looking pleased with himself for supplying this information. "Uh, then, Luke came back down, and told me that he was going to head out. I followed him, and he dropped me off at my dorm, and then I think he said he was heading over to the baseball field."

"Did you see Josh or Hennery while you were at the house?" Grissom asked, hoping that Erik had seen more. 

"Hennery? Who's Hennery? Oh, you mean the wire guy? Nah, I don't think he was with us that day. And Josh? Oh, he was taking a nap."

"A nap?" Brass asked, trying really hard not to laugh.

"Yah, a nap on the floor. I saw him when we left. I don't know why though, there was a lot of broken stuff around him, but Luke told me it was time to go."

Brass and Grissom turned away from Erik, "It looks like they had this whole thing worked out." Brass mumbled trying not to be over heard by Erik. 

"Mr. Kurt, do you know the alarm code for the house that you were in?" Grissom asked.

"Nope. Only Luke does. And I think that Hennery guy. He set the whole thing up for us. Did you see it? Isn't the floor great?" Erik asked excitedly.

"No, I haven't, but I'll take your word for it." Grissom said standing up. "Thank you very much Mr. Kurt. You are free to go."

"What about Luke?" he asked pushing his chair underneath the table.

"We'll have to see about that." Brass said shutting the door behind him.  

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

"If you're no going to talk, _I am_." Catherine stated sitting down at the table. Nick then entered the room and nodded to Catherine, who the looked towards the one way glass. Grissom was behind there with Jenny and they were going to confirm whatever Luke said, that is if they got him to talk. 

"Ok Luke," Nick said joining Catherine at the table. "You and Josh are buddies, right? So you try and think up a way to make some extra dough. Someone comes up with the idea for a rave, and it sounds great. And trust me, when I saw it, it looked killer man."

"So, you and Josh think up this whole plan – because Erik is too thick to think for himself and had no idea about half of the stuff going on. Does he know about the drugs? I don't think he does." 

"The two of you find this house in a quiet neighborhood where no one would think to look, and then you start making plans. You hire Hennery O'Malley to do all of the electrical work for you, like disco lights and alarm systems."

"The whole thing is working great. Somehow you are getting loads of money to do all of this, and loads of drugs too. So just to let you know, you will be brought up on possession charges also." Catherine added with a little smile. 

"Everything whet according to plans, until yesterday." Nick said and took one of the case folders from the table. "Yesterday, two people were shot in that house, and both of them are now dead. Now, you could be charged with one, or two murders. Anything you want to say?"

Luke took a deep breath, and finally blinked his eyes. "Josh was wack man." 

"How so?" Nick asked.

"Drugs. He needed them like flowers need sunlight. Coach was getting all of us steroids and such, but he wanted more. He found someone to get him ecstasy. He thought it would be great for the rave, you know? Bring in a whole lot more business."

"So what happened?" Catherine asked, glancing at the mirror. She could only hope that everyone was listening to their conversation. 

"Hennery found them at the house and Josh flipped out. He threatened Hennery and told him not to tell a soul. I'm not sure if he did or not, but Josh wasn't going to take any chances. He called Hennery up and asked him to come over to the house. I head the entire conversation. Josh said that we didn't need him for any more work, and that Josh would pay him in full. I knew what Josh was going to do, but he didn't have a gun or anything. I didn't think his plan would actually work."

"Did it?" 

"Sorta, Josh got Erik's gun without me knowing, and we all showed up at the house yesterday afternoon. Erik and I went downstairs to clean the place up – it was supposed to be our first last night. We were only down there for about a half hour, and then I heard a bunch of stuff being thrown and then footsteps moving upstairs. Moments later I head the first gunshot and then nothing. Erik was too stupid to realize what was going on, so I headed up stairs.

"Before I even made it up I heard another shot. When I made it into the other room, Hennery was lying flat on his back and Josh was standing over him. I dove at Josh, who fired at me. I got lucky and ducked and grabbed Josh's legs. The gun fell. Before he had time to react, I grabbed the gun. I was just going to scare him, but he lunged at me and I shot him."

Catherine and Nick stated at Luke. What he was saying made sense, and most of it could be confirmed with evidence, but that was Grissom's job, they were just trying to get a confession.  "What did you do next?" Nick finally said breaking the silence that had over come the room. 

"I panicked. Josh was conscious, but Hennery wasn't. I think Josh had smacked him hard or something. I got Josh a towel from the bathroom so he could try and stop the bleeding. The towel did a pretty good job, and he tied it around his stomach. We then wrapped Hennery up in the plastic that was on the floor and took him downstairs. That's when Josh collapsed on the floor. I left him there and took Hennery out to my car. I came back in and Josh now wasn't conscious. Erik and I left, but before we did I set the alarm. I though it would keep Josh in there until I came back to get him later. Turns out it didn't work." Luke looked down and began to wring his hands. 

"Why didn't you call the police, an ambulance?" Catherine asked feeling sorry for the guy, "Something could have been done to save both of their lives."

"I panicked, ok?" Luke said, anger rising in his voice.

"Luke, we have your fingerprints from the baseball case over in the field that supports the theory that you dumped Hennery there. Did you know that he was still alive?" 

Luke looked down at the ground, "Yah." He mumbled.

"Why didn't you do something?"

"I didn't want to get in trouble! And when I ever say Josh in that game, I freaked. I thought that he was going to tell someone what had happened, and then blamed the whole thing on me_. I_ had hid the body, not _him_." Luke paused for a sec. "You know the drugs were in the balls."

Nick nodded his head, "Yah, I found them all over in the storage closet. All the drugs were gone though." 

"Figures. The ball that was used in the game had drugs in it you know. I tired to get down there after he fell to get the ball and the drugs, but it looks like someone beat me to it." Luke shrugged and pushed back in his chair and stood up. "Arrest me, just get it over with." He said holding out his hands. "I've only planned a rave, killed someone, hid a body, and let millions of dollars worth of drugs get away." He looked down at the floor realizing that his life as he knew it was over.  

Catherine looked over towards the glass. Moments later an officer came in and handcuffed Luke. He led him outside into the hallway. Jenny stood there staring at him as he walked out. The two of them looked at each other for a moment, and then Luke turned away, but Jenny did not. She stared at him as the officer led him down the hallway and around the corner. Then she turned and walked the other way.

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

(Hopefully that made sense to you all. Man, confessions are hard….) 


	18. Eighteen

They all sat in the break room in silence. Jenny hadn't said a word to anyone in over an hour now. She seemed to be in a state of shock after realizing what had actually happened. The university would be in frenzy once word got out about what had really happened. And now there would be an investigation looking for the drugs that seem to have gotten away. Jenny was trying to figure out what would happen to her when she went back to her classes. Obviously people would realize that she had been a part of this investigation, and would they shun her for brining justice to Hennery? Jenny could care less about Josh at the moment, but other people would probably feel different and resent her for that fact. 

Jenny looked up and realized that everyone in the break room was staring right at her. "What?" she asked.

"You did good." Sara said coming over to sit next to her. "You picked up things that we would have over looked. That's what makes a great investigator. But, eh, Nick here tells us that you want to be a vet…."

"It was just a thought." Jenny said looking around at the faces staring back at her. "Unless of course you aren't going to send me back to Eckley and I get to stay and bond with you guys…." 

"I think that could be arranged." Grissom said handing her some papers to fill out so her shift could be officially changed. 

\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/

"Go and get some sleep." Catherine yelled over her shoulder as she left the crime lab. She waltzed out of there and got into her car and sped off. 

"I could use some breakfast." Warrick said coming around the corner with Nick.  

"I think it's more like lunch now." the two of them laughed and then left the lab. 

"Are we sill on for Friday?" Grissom asked when he noticed that Sara was getting ready to depart herself.

"Why wouldn't we be?" she asked throwing on her coat. 

"Maybe you had changed you mind or something…."

"No, I stick to what I've been told." She said grabbing her purse and fishing out her keys.

"Oh really now. You sometimes don't stick to what _I_ tell you to do."

"But this one I will." she said smiling at Grissom. "I'll talk to you later then." She said after a moment of awkward silence passed. Grissom watched Sara leave the crime lab, and turned to collect his belongings. 

"Come on, pay up Greg."

"I don't think this was a very fair bet…."

"You promised! Come on! I want my twenty bucks!"

"I _never _thought it would have happened."

"Well, it did. Come on, then I'll get out of your hair."

"You can come and play with my hair _any_ day Sparkie…."

"Oh please…." Grissom turned the corner to find Jenny and Greg standing there. When he walked over, Jenny took the money that Greg had just handed her and shoved it in her pocket. 

"Hello Boss." Greg said in his always-perky voice.

"Hello Greg. Now what were you two doing?" 

"Nothing that you should be concerned with. Goodbye Grissom, later Sparkie." Greg said turning the corner and heading back to his lab. 

"See you later Grissom." Jenny said and started walking out towards the exit.

"Jenny, what was that about?" 

"Oh, that was nothing. Greg and I just had a little bet."

"A bet? About what?"

"About _nothing_." Jenny stated firmly trying to change the subject.

"I find out everything around here." Grissom said proudly. 

"Then you should know what we were betting on." Jenny said turning to look at him. 

"Does it involve me?" He asked trying to detain Jenny for another second.

"Maybe." She replied grabbing the keys to her car out of her pocket. "Now come on, I've been up _way_ longer than all of you now."

Grissom realized that that was true. Jenny had been up all day and had now just pulled an all nighter and now it was lunchtime. But he still wanted to know what they were betting on. "Does it involve me and another colleague?" He said remembering the two of them laughing together in Greg's lab. 

"No comment." Jenny mumbled.

"You bet on Sara and I?" Grissom asked. Now he wanted to know exactly what this was about. 

"Look, Greg said that no one else would bet with him. I thought it would be a good way to make twenty bucks." 

"So you won the bet?"

"Yup." She said proudly. 

"And what side did you bet with?" Grissom asked a little confused. What exactly had the two of them been betting on?   

"Oh don't tell me that you are _that_ thick. I've been here for less than a day and I can already see stuff between you two."

"Excuse me?" Grissom asked a little taken aback at her comment about him and Sara.

"What else don't I know about this night shift?" she asked half mockingly. 

"Well, Catherine used to be a stripper, Warrick has a gambling problem, I race cockroaches, and the last new recruit we had was killed."  Grissom replied as if all of those were no big deal.

"Right. Ok. That's way more information that I needed to know. Is it too late to transfer back to day shift? I think it will be a lot easier dealing with Eckley's temper than with all of your weird quirks." Jenny shook her head and walked away from Grissom, still muttering to herself as she went. 

Grissom watched her leave the crime lab, and then he turned and walked back to his office.  

**\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\*/\*/*\**

TAH-DAH!

I'm done! And I hoped you liked it. If you didn't well, than that sucks for you. Haha, I'm just kidding now…. review if you will, and tell me what you think of the finished product….

_And,_ for all of you **Grissom and Sara** **shippers** out there who didn't meet their daily quota with this story, I know, I need more in there. (I'm one of those shippers too, you know…). So, my next story (which I am going to call **Red Light, Green Light**, if you can figure out what it means I'll give you a Starbucks) will be bursting from the brim with G/S stuff. Trust me. It will fill your allotment for the WEEK. You'll just have to wait until I get back from my vacation, and then of course I have to write it…yah, have a salubrious day everyone. 

~ a.l.


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